USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project – Quarterly Progress Report (July - September 30, 2015)

The project is being implemented in collaboration with the Provincial and Regional Departments of Education (DoE) in Pakistan. PRP's primary objective is to enhance reading skills of children in early grades through teacher trainings, policy reforms, and community support for reading. PRP's Component 1 focused on developing and reviewing reading materials for Grade 1 students. In the current reporting period, PRP completed content for Grade 1 Urdu Materials for Academic Weeks 17-24 and Grade 1 Sindhi Material for Academic Weeks 9-16. To achieve this goal, PRP organized several meetings and workshops, including a National Meeting in Islamabad to develop Urdu Grade 1 Material for Academic Weeks 17-24, seven provincial/regional Material Review Committee (MRC) meetings to review and approve Material for Grade 1 Academic Weeks 17-24, and two Regional Workshops to develop Sindhi Grade 1 Material for Academic Weeks 1-8 and 9-16. PRP also made significant progress in implementing its Teacher Inquiry Group (TIG) program. TIG Modules 11-18 were drafted in English, including topics such as Revisiting TIGs and Summative Assessment, Peer Visitation, and Continuous Assessment. Additionally, PRP completed adaptation of Sindhi TIG Modules 6-10, which will be presented to MRC for approval in the next quarter. The project also continued distribution of Grade 1 Urdu Workbooks (Activity Books including decodable readers) for Academic Weeks 1-8 in remaining AJK and Sindh Cohort 1 schools. PRP launched Cohort 2, which included trainings for Mentors, Teachers, Head Teachers, Academic Supervisors, and TIG Facilitators. A total of 881 TIGs were finalized in AJK, GB, KP, and Sindh during this period, while TIGs in Balochistan will be finalized in the first TIG meeting of Cohort 2 early next quarter. School Support Associates (SSAs) and Mentors conducted a total of 5,697 school visits out of 16,048 planned visits in this quarter. Under the Information Communication Technology (ICT) component, PRP completed the procurement process for 23,800 Tablets and launched a Short Messaging Service (SMS) platform for Teachers with 75,000 text SMS. The project also initiated procurement process for video production house to develop 14 Urdu and 34 Sindhi Virtual Mentoring Videos (VMVs) for Year 2 TIG Modules. As part of the Pre-Service Teacher Training program, PRP led Training Workshops for faculty of 8 Teacher Training Institutes (TTIs) to prepare for piloting of reading instruction curricula. The project also initiated piloting of these courses in three Elementary Colleges.