EN-REACH Education

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. 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 Program for the child-parent-teacher triad' be effectively scaled within national government pre-primary platforms using a cluster randomized controlled trial?
* How can the outcomes of the 'School Readiness Program 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.

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 (BBS 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 (EN-REACH) (Miah et al, 2024). This new applied research will support the adaptation of the EN-REACH 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 EN-REACH 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:

To enhance teacher engagement and teaching practices by adapting an innovative disability-inclusive early education training programme into a fully inclusive programme that involves children, parents, teachers and the community.

Objective 2:

Generating knowledge on factors that can facilitate the scaling of the child-parent-teacher triad innovation, including cost-effectiveness.

Objective 3:

To mobilize the key stakeholders within the educational systems under the Ministry of Education in all 3 countries, on the basis of programme results to improve policy and practice to transfer into a government supported programmes.

Study design This study will employ a cluster (sub-districts) randomized controlled trial (cRCT) with an embedded qualitative component. It will evaluate scale-up strategies, emphasizing teachers' capacity for preschool to early primary education transition and parents' ability to improve children's school readiness.

Study settings The EN-REACH study will be conducted at Kushtia and Gaibandha districts in Bangladesh and at Dhading and Nuwakot in Nepal and at Temeke and Kigamboni in Tanzania.

Methods by Objectives Objective 1: ADAPTATION

Step 1: We will refine the tested EN-REACH parenting pre-school readiness package by incorporating the following areas:

A) Revise the Pre-school Readiness Parenting Package to ensure it is also aligned to pre-school teacher-pedagogy: We aim to enhance the EN-REACH pre-school parenting package as summary of the content in Table 1 by incorporating pre-academic foundational skills and play-based activities, fostering holistic skills development. This includes creating an inclusive environment, promoting play-based learning, storytelling, pre-reading, pre-numeracy skills, drawing, writing, and supporting socio-emotional needs. Collaboration with Ministry of Education representatives and development partner, like the World Bank, ensures alignment with each country's ECCE policy and early learning standards.

B) Develop a teacher training manual: A training module for PPE teacher training, will be developed to promote pre-school teachers' skills in ECCE. These will include foundational skills, importance of play, communication, socio-emotional learning and ways to adapt the curricula for children with disabilities. The content, standards, framework, and pathways will be customized in collaboration with expert educational stakeholders in these settings.

C) Develop a Community Stakeholder Awareness Package: An additional Infomrtaion Education and Communication (IEC) package including leaflet, poster and short videos will be developed specifically to sensitize key stakeholders including, PPE teachers, caregivers of children with disabilities, the community leaders and SMCs about EN-REACH PPE programme.

Target participants:

Teachers: Our teacher training initiative will involve a total of 20 pre-school teachers and 20 headmasters evenly distributed among 40 intervention schools in each country. Upon the completion of the intervention programme, we will extend training to 120 teachers and headmasters in the control group to facilitate the implementation of the programme with government support across three countries.

Parent-child dyads: The study will encompass 3000 caregivers of children from 120 government primary school (GPS) (60 GPS for intervention and 60 control) across two districts in each country.

Outcome variables: Anticipated primary outcome is improved children's school readiness. Secondary outcomes are enhanced parental knowledge, attitudes and practice for school readiness, parent's mental health, parent's quality of life, increased teachers' competence, home environment and better school environment.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

* All children aged 48-72 months
* Enrolled in preschools
* Residing in the catchment areas of GPS
* Include/over sample for children with functional disabilities even if they are over 72 months of age.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Un-consenting parents
* Intervention school of EN-REACH study