Bridging Gaps and Scaling Up: a School Readiness Programme for Child-parent-teacher Triad in Bangladesh, Nepal and Tanzania
Trial Snapshot
- Phase
- Not Applicable
- Status
- Not yet recruiting
- Enrollment
- 3,000
- Locations
- 1
- Primary Endpoint
- Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO)
Study Overview
Brief Summary
The goal of the project is to assess the scale-up of the program, focusing on improving school readiness among preschool children, enhancing capacity building for parents and teachers, and utilizing a cluster randomized controlled trial (cRCT). The primary research questions are to seek answer-
- What specific adaptations are necessary for an innovative, disability-inclusive early education training program to become a fully inclusive model that enhances teachers' engagement and practices in pre-primary classrooms in Nepal, Tanzania, and Bangladesh?
- How can a new, equitable 'School Readiness Programme for the child-parent-teacher triad' be effectively scaled within national government pre-primary platforms using a cRCT?
- How can the outcomes of the 'School Readiness Programme for the child-parent-teacher triad' be implemented in a cost-effective manner by key stakeholders across the three sites?
The research will examine an adapted inclusive early education training programme will lead to improved teaching practices, enhanced parental capacity, and better school readiness for all children compared to standard education programme; and b) the child-parent-teacher triad model can be scaled effectively within the government primary education systems.
Detailed Description
In Bangladesh, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey shows that only 18.9% of children aged 3-5 attend early childhood care and education (ECCE) programmes, and 25.5% are not developing at the expected rate (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF, 2019). In Nepal, there are 35,991 early childhood development (ECD) and ECCE centers, unevenly distributed due to geographical barriers, with a very low enrollment (0.21%) of children with disabilities. Similarly, in Tanzania, efforts to ensure inclusive education in pre-primary schools face challenges with attendance and funding for disability schools in ECCE (Davis, D., et al, 2021).
Despite ongoing efforts through ECCE programmes to promote effective school readiness globally, there exists a considerable and enduring gap in both the access to and quality of ECCE programmes for all children across three countries. This knowledge gap is rooted in the intersectionality of barriers affecting school readiness and scaling up.
This project builds on previous successful work in Bangladesh, Nepal and Tanzania, that focused on the readiness of both children and caregivers to enter the preschool education programme, through an initiative called Every Newborn-Reach Up Early Education Intervention for All Children (ENREACH) (Miah et al, 2024). This new applied research will support the adaptation of the ENREACH programme to incorporate key components on teacher readiness to facilitate a seamless transition to pre-primary education. The justification behind this innovation lies in incorporating key components of teacher readiness into the ENREACH programme, positioning it as an ideal and promising solution for bridging gaps to greater inclusion and increasing opportunities to scaling up across three countries
Objectives:
Objective 1:
Study Design
- Study Type
- Interventional
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Intervention Model
- Parallel
- Primary Purpose
- Treatment
- Masking
- Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Masking Description
All assessors will be blinded to the intervention group
Eligibility Criteria
- Ages
- 48 Months to 84 Months (Child)
- Sex
- All
- Accepts Healthy Volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria
- •All children aged 48-84 months
- •Enrolled in preschools
- •Residing in the catchment areas of GPS
- •Include/over sample for children with functional disabilities even if they are over 84 months of age.
Exclusion Criteria
- •Un-consenting parents
- •Intervention school of EN-REACH study
Arms & Interventions
Arm 1: Intervention
Caregivers and their pre-school children aged 48-84 months, enrolled in pre-primary education.
Intervention: ENREACH child-parent-teacher triad (Behavioral)
Arm 2: Control
Caregivers and their children aged 48-84 months, enrolled in pre-primary education.
Outcomes
Primary Outcomes
Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO)
Time Frame: 40 Minutes
School readiness (per-literacy, numeracy, executive functions, and social-emotional learning) will be assessed using the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO)
Secondary Outcomes
- Early childhood version of Home Observation for Measurement of Environment(30 Minutes)
- Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL)(30 Minutes)
- Measure of Early Learning Environment (MELE)(90 minutes)
- Feeling Questionnaires(5 minutes)
- Teacher Interview Report(20 minutes)
- Knowledge and Practice questionnaire(30 minutes)
- Anthropometry(5 minutes)
- Washington/UNICEF child functioning(20 minutes)