We also learned a great deal from the external evaluation, a randomised controlled trial (RCT) commissioned separately by USAID. Unfortunately, the evaluation did not find that children in the treatment schools had increased reading skills or reading behaviours compared to children in control schools, though it did find some positive impact on access to reading materials in schools and homes. The sub-population of children in reading clubs reported reading on their own at home more frequently. In one province, children in reading clubs had higher fluency in mother tongue and better productive listening comprehension than comparison learners.

These findings may have been impacted by constraints in the evaluation design. Many sampled teachers and learners did not participate in the programme directly, and endline assessments were done a full year after the project exited in schools. As such, any potential positive effects may have been harder to detect.

Still, we learned useful lessons, including that Nal’ibali should simplify guidelines for Story Sparkers, limit expectations of what a Story Sparker can achieve within the school context, and emphasize reading aloud, forming reading habits and children handling text independently as key goals of the programme. We are applying these lessons in our approach going forward.