The performance evaluation of the Reading for Success (RFS) project assisted the United States Agency for International Development/Morocco (USAID/Morocco) in gathering information for the following purposes:
- To assess the extent to which the activities under the RFS project contribute to achieving the Education Development Objective;
- To inform the implementation of ongoing or upcoming activities, including that of the RFS-National Program for Reading (RFS-NPR); and
- To inform the next Country Development Cooperation Strategy design, which is scheduled to be drafted in 2020.
STS provided technical leadership for the RFS evaluation, including overall management of the study. STS began by performing a desk review of existing documents and facilitated an evaluation design workshop and stakeholder mapping exercise in Morocco. STS then wrote a detailed evaluation design report to help ensure that evaluators and stakeholders have a shared understanding of the evaluation purpose, methods, and analysis and reporting procedures.
STS developed five qualitative data collection instruments, including two focus group discussion guides and three key informant interview guides. All tools were translated to both Arabic and French. STS led both remote and in-person data collection training before leading data collection in multiple regions of Morocco. Data include school visits, focus groups with teachers and parents, and key informant interviews with school directors, project implementers, government officials, and USAID staff. STS led qualitative data analysis and validated draft results in both an in-person workshop in Morocco and a remote meeting with USAID and Ministry of Education stakeholders prior to leading wider dissemination in a remote webinar.
The evaluation results were shared with broader USAID audiences, including USAID/Washington and implementing partners, to highlight best practices and lessons learned, and to inform management of the results achieved by USAID/Morocco in basic education and early grade reading. In addition, relevant results were shared with the Government of Morocco counterparts in French- and Arabic-language executive summaries produced by STS to further promote improving basic education in Morocco through enhanced reading instruction in early grades.
