Reflection on the SUCCEED Project and the Importance of Evidence Based ProgrammingDescribe:
Save the Children has been a pioneer in Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs worldwide for the last two decades. The SUCCEED program in Bangladesh was, indisputably, one of the agency’s most successful ECD programs. It was built on anearlier program, Strong Beginnings, that piloted an approach to home-based preschools and parent education. SUCCEED, aUSAID-funded program, was a much larger scale ECD program that refined and replicated successful components of this model. It operated in 17 districts and five regional hubs, working with over 2,000 preschools and nearly 920,000 beneficiaries. I joined the Bangladesh country office in 2007 when this initiative was well underway. Analyze: The SUCCEED program was implemented through five partner NGOs, whose capacity to manage ECD programs was gradually built up over the life of project. The program focused on getting children ready for school and schools ready for children. Specifically the program prepared children for school through quality home- and school-based preschools; supporting children's transition into primary school through activities such as welcome days, and child-to-child and mentoring programs; and fostering community and parental engagement in their children's learning and development. The project worked closely with both the Ministry of Women's and Children's Affairs and the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, the two government agencies responsible for young children and ECD services. Appraise: One of the greatest contributions of SUCCEED was the evidence that it generated around quality preschool provision in Bangladesh, and its impact on children’s success in primary school. To achieve this, Save the Children partnered with an external researcher from McGill University who used internationally accepted research tools to conduct annual evaluations of program impact. Results showed that the quality of SUCCEED preschools rose consistently from 2005 to 2008, ultimately meeting international standards for preschool quality. Furthermore, preschool quality was positively correlated with children's subsequent success in grades 1 and 2. SUCCEED graduates outperformed children who had not been to preschool in key competencies related to reading, writing and oral math. Transform: Having generated such solid evidence of program impact and experience added strength to our local and national advocacy platform in support of ECD, complementing existing international evidence. While in Bangladesh, my ECD team and I constantly shared our results with NGO, government and donor counterparts through site visits, technical exchanges and public forums. Wealso participated in national technical committees and other mediums for sharing and showcasing results of our work. Our many years of advocacy came to fruition when the government set the goal of establishing preschools in all 80,000 primary schools nationwide in 2010. I cited this example not because of my personal contribution to this particular study, but more for my hands-on learning through this exercise. In country, I worked closely with the primary investigator as well as Bangladeshi counterparts leading me to instigate further operations research which was funded in 2009 through a follow on grant known as PROTEEVA. I also set up operational research in a multi sectorial program in Meherpur District, Khulna Division to track the importance of early stimulation for infants and young children's nutrition and cognitive development. This study generated positive results and will be published in the near future. My connection with the primary researcher afforded me a sounding board when I helped design subsequent studies with graduate students on the advantages of offering ECD services and early schooling in local lanuguages and on the importance of after school activities. I am very familiar with obtaining requisites for peer review publications, e.g. obtaining Institutional Review Board approval prior to initiating programs or studies, the importance of ethics review board approval and of securing government approval and buy-in from the outset of the process. |