A Remote Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Save the Children is developing a rigorous, feasible way to assess learning outcomes for children engaged in distance learning.

In early April 2020, in an effort to halt the spread of COVID-19, an estimated 1.6 billion learners globally – 91% of the total – were out of school. It is unlikely that all age groups of children will return to classrooms before April 2021. Many children will never go back to school. 

Considerable efforts have been made to provide distance learning opportunities for marginalized children. It’s critical that education practitioners understand the impact of these distance learning programs and how they compare to in-person interventions. Yet, there is not a rigorous assessment tool that can be administered remotely to evaluate children’s learning.

Save the Children is leveraging its experience with existing assessments like the Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO), International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA), International Social-emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA), Literacy Boost Reading Assessment (LBRA), and Numeracy Boost Assessment (NBA) to rapidly develop a new tool.

The tool will be holistic and measure learning in literacy, numeracy and social-emotional development for children aged 6 to 12. It will also be designed for a variety of contexts; multiple administration options will allow for use in varied technology contexts.  

Tool development takes time and Save the Children is committed to building an assessment that is rigorous and well tested. The assessment is currently in draft form. Multiple pilot sites are being considered and following pilot data collection in Q2 2021, the tool will be revised and updated. We look forward to sharing more updates with you in the coming months!