Advancing Learning Outcomes for Transformational Change Phase III

Abstract

A total of 918 study participants were included in the study. Of these, 371 were followed up from A LOT Phase II whereas newly recruited cohort comprised of 547 learners. The average learner age was 15.8 years, ranging from 13.0 to 21.6 years. By sex, the mean age of boys (15.9) was slightly greater than that of girls (15.7). A bigger proportion of fathers had post primary education (54.7%) than mothers (41.2%). About 4% of the fathers had university level education compared to 1.5% of the mothers. Overall over 91% attended school in the last schooling week. About 3.1% missed school once, 2.3% missed twice, whereas 2.3% missed the entire schooling week. The main reasons for missing school included lack of school fees (43%), sickness (32.9%), no learning activity (11.4%), and did not feel like attending (6.3%). The proportion of learners who had weekly homework assignments was higher for Mathematics (94.7%) than for English (91.6%). About 80.1% of learners always completed the Mathematics assignment whereas 86.7% always completed their English assignments. About 59% of learners in the follow-up group received afterschool support as compared to 50% in the new-cohort. Over half (56.5%) of learners never received support from their HH members in English with the new cohort contributing to a higher proportion at 59.9% compared to to the follow-up cohort at 51.7%..There was a significant association between the cohort and frequency of support they received from HH members in Mathematics and English with p-values of 0.012 and 0.036 respectively. This means that learners in the follow-up cohort were more likely to receive homework support in English and Maths compared to learners in the new cohort.