Piper, et al., 2018. Scaling up successfully: Lessons from Kenya’s Tusome national literacy program

Scale up of effective programmes basically never works.

Here’s an exception.  The programme began with a strong evidence base from a large number of medium-size RCTs:

Communicating expectations (how many words a minute should students be able to read), providing resources (teacher guides and student books) and checking what was happening, led to dramatic success.

It’s a technical rational solution, but it’s a good first step.

Piper, B., Destefano, J., Kinyanjui, E., Ong’ele, S. (2018). Scaling up successfully: Lessons from Kenya’s Tusome national literacy program. Journal of Educational Change (2018) 19, pp.293–321.