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Mid-Term Evaluation of the Accelerated Learning Program for Positive Living and United Service (ALPP)
DevTech conducted for USAID/Liberia a mid-term review of The Accelerated Learning Program for Positive Living and United Service (ALPP).
Introduced in 2006, the ALPP is part of the broader Liberian Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) developed in 1998 with the goal of meeting the educational needs of primary school drop-outs, and over-aged children and youth, by enabling them to complete their primary education in three years (Levels 1-III vs. Grades 1-6). At the time of the evaluation, the ALP was implemented in ten counties by 11 Implementing Partners.
The Evaluation Team dedicated three months in Liberia to assess (1) the coverage and impact of the USAID-funded ALPP intervention after 18 months of implementation and (2) the relative efficacy and appropriateness of the overall ALP model for students aged 15 and older as implemented by the 11 partner agencies. The evaluation design included classroom observations, focus groups, and student testing.
The Evaluation Team traveled to the six counties where ALPP is implemented, visiting a total of 18 school sites and covering the educational programs of the USAID-implemented ALPP, Partner-implemented Accelerated Learning Programs (ALP), and MoE-run Conventional Primary School Grades 1-6. The visits included 39 classroom observations. In addition focus groups/interviews were carried out with, but not limited to, Ministry of Education personnel, partner organizations, County and District Education Officers, principals, community members, Parent-Teacher Associations, youth groups and students.
To assess the learning outcomes of ALP students and determine the overall effectiveness of the program, the Team developed and administered assessment instruments in Mathematics and Language Arts for ALP Levels II and III. The exams were designed to assess proficiency in specific skills such as subtraction, division, use of pronouns, and comprehension. To provide comparative data, the tests were also administered to students in MoE Grades 3 and 5 and to students in ALP partner programs. In total 806 students were tested by the DevTech team.
To complement the evaluation aspects of the assignment, DevTech delivered three capacity building workshops staff of the implementing and other Liberian educators with the purpose of increasing the capacity of ALP Implementing Partners to develop instructional assessments to collect and use data on ALP student learning outcomes and to improve the ability to collect, manage and analyze data through improved database skills and developing a common monitoring tool and reliable database for ALP/ALPP programs.
