RESEARCH BRIEF
No. 10 - 2016
LEARNING ASSESSMENT: Midline Knowledge, Evidence & Research The Knowledge, Evidence and Research (KER) component of the Girls’ Education South Sudan 1 (GESS1) programme aims to generate increased knowledge and evidence for policymakers of what works to promote girls’ education in South Sudan, about programmatic causality and impact, and to provide evidence about what may be scaleable and transferable to other contexts. The KER develops an evidence base for the project interventions, linking inputs to outcomes and impacts, and gathers broader information about what works in girls’ education. The programme gathers data continuously through the South Sudan School Attendance Monitoring System (SSSAMS), twice yearly through LQS, yearly through school sample survey, and then has set piece Baseline (2014), Midline (2016), and Endline (2018) survey waves.
Learning Assessment Objectives The Midline Learning Assessment measures attainment of male and female pupils in numeracy and literacy across South Sudan, to give insight into the impact of GESS and other interventions.
Methodology Literacy and numeracy tests were administered in September and October 2016 at Primary 5, Primary 8 and Secondary 2 grades in a sample of 59 schools, including 38 primary schools and 21 secondary schools. This school sample included assessments from 10,042 pupils of whom 3,993 were girls, 5,297 were boys, and 752 had no gender listed. Where possible, the assessments were repeated in the same schools visited for the Baseline. Due to new conflicts in areas such as (former) Central Equatoria and Eastern Equatoria and related inaccessibility, some schools were reselected. For the Midline, assessment was also scaled up into Greater Upper Nile. New locations were randomly selected from the School Survey sample frame (based on the P5, P8 and S2 stratum). There are 6 learning assessments in total that were designed to identify pupils’ understanding of literacy and numeracy at the Primary 5, Primary 8, and Secondary 2 grade levels. For the Midline, the layout of the exam was changed into 2 configurations for each assessment to improve exam security, but the question content remained the same as the 2014 Baseline assessments for comparability. The assessment is completed and overseen by trained State Anchor enumerators, at a set point in the school year (August/ September). This consistent timing is important for year-onyear comparisons; the timeline was generally adhered to for the administration of both the Baseline and Midline learning assessments.