In 2016, the Luminos Fund launched the Second Chance program in Liberia to help address the country’s urgent education needs – including one of the world’s highest recorded rates of out-of-school children. To date, Luminos has helped 12,650 Liberian children catch up on learning and reintegrate into local schools. 489 young people have been trained in the Second Chance pedagogy and model.
Previous external evaluation results show that in just 10 months, Second Chance students in Liberia are reading 39 correct words per minute (CWPM) on average, compared to just under 5 CWPM at the start of the program. [1] Approximately 90% of Luminos students transition to mainstream school at the end of the program.
During the 2020/21 school year, results show that the Second Chance program increased oral reading fluency by 28.7 CWPM, with girls progressing 4 CWPM more than boys. These results are remarkable on two accounts. First, the 2020/21 school year was a shorter, 7-month program due to the COVID-19 pandemic (in a typical school year, the Second Chance program runs for 10 months). Second, the 2020/21 school year marked the reopening of classes in Liberia for the Luminos Fund after COVID-19 school closures (mid-March through December 2020). Our latest report, “Second Chance Liberia Endline Evaluation Report,” summarizes results from the 2020/21 Second Chance endline evaluation conducted by Q&A Services. [2]
Evaluation Overview
The evaluation aimed to demonstrate the impact of the Second Chance Liberia program on student literacy and numeracy outcomes during the 28-week 2020/21 program. The literacy and numeracy levels of a random sample of students across all Second Chance classes were assessed in the first two weeks of the program (baseline) and again in the final week of the program (endline). 345 students (ngirls= 163, nboys 182) across 80 Second Chance classes were assessed at baseline and endline. The RTI/USAID-developed Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) tools adapted for Liberia were used at both baseline and endline to assess students on a variety of early grade reading and math skills. For more details on the evaluation and methods used, please see the full report summary.
Overall Results
Results show that the Second Chance program positively impacted student achievement in both reading and math, with statistically significant impact on reading.
Literacy
On reading, students showed improvement across every EGRA subtask, including improvement of 48 percentage points on both letter identification and oral reading fluency of Grade 2 level text, 41 percentage points on familiar words, and 28 percentage points on reading comprehension. In oral reading fluency, students read 31.5 correct words per minute (CWPM) at endline, compared to 2.8 CWPM at baseline. Results show that the Second Chance program increased oral reading fluency by 28.7 CWPM during the 7-month 2020/21 program. See Table 1 below for the full results.
Numeracy
On numeracy, students again showed improvement across every single EGMA subtask, including improvement of 35 percentage points in number identification, 32 percentage points in number discrimination, 27 percentage points on addition and 17 percentage points on subtraction. As noted, while Second Chance impacted student achievement on mathematics, improvement was less significant than literacy. This makes sense given that 5 hours of the Second Chance school day (approximately 70% of instructional time) is devoted to literacy and 2 hours each day (30% of instructional time) is devoted to numeracy. See Table 2 below for the full results.
Conclusion
Results from the Luminos Fund’s 2020/21 Liberia program show that the program positively impacted student reading and math outcomes across all EGRA and EGMA subtasks. Student improvement in reading was statistically significant. Results show that the average student improved 28.7 CWPM within the 7-month Second Chance program, with girls improving four CWPM more than boys on oral reading fluency. Outcomes were similar across gender, county, and implementing partner. These results are incredibly impressive given the shorter 7-month 2020/21 program, and the challenges of successfully delivering an education program during the COVID-19 pandemic. When compared with similar programs in Liberia and globally, results show that Second Chance is a highly efficient and effective way to help vulnerable children catch up on learning.
To read the full report summary, including additional background on our Liberia program and a more detailed overview of the evaluation and methods used, click here.
1. Simpson, A. “Luminos Fund Second Chance Program, Liberia, Endline Evaluation Report 2018-19,” Q&A Services, June 2019.
2. Simpson, A. “Second Chance Liberia Endline Evaluation 2020-21,” Q&A Services, October 2021.
