PAQUED Quarterly Report January 31 – March 31, 2013

The project was realigned to focus on increasing the number of readers, with a primary goal of improving reading skills among students in the three provinces. To achieve this goal, the project organized a national workshop for establishing initial performance standards for reading at the elementary school level. The workshop, held in collaboration with partners OPEQ/IRC/USAID and UNICEF, brought together 40 participants, including Ministry of Education officials, researchers, international partners, and members of the Ministry Reading Commission. The workshop resulted in the establishment of performance indicators and benchmarks for reading fluency in Grades 1 to 6 for both French and DRC national languages. For example, the participants established a benchmark of 30 to 35 words per minute for 3rd-grade students, indicating that students should be capable of correctly reading and/or recognizing at least 30 words in one minute from a list of grade-level words. The workshop also resulted in the development of a "road map" of related tasks to be completed for advancing efforts to improve reading in the DRC. These tasks include the establishment of a pilot committee and revision of the draft reading curriculum. The project also reinforced its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacity by recruiting seven field staff, including three former scriptwriters and four consultants who had previously worked for the project. These new staff will have the responsibility of accompanying schools in effectively using the various tools and techniques that the project has put at teachers' disposal to improve the quality of teaching and learning. In addition, the project hired six consultants to help launch a reading program in selected experimental schools. These consultants will become full-time employees to serve as Pedagogical Supervisors (PS) when USAID approves the proposed realignment of the project. The project also issued bids for the procurement of school kits, which will be purchased during the coming quarter. The project's programmatic achievements during the reporting period included the completion of a number of activities to prepare for the launch of the realigned program at the start of the 2013-14 school year. The project also worked with partners to facilitate revision of the new reading curriculum and completion of other priority tasks identified in the road map.