EGRA and EGMA Reports

Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA)  and Early Grade Math Assessment (EGMA) were developed by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in conjunction with USAID. 

Our EGRA and EGMA programme includes a multi-­‐year, pupil-­‐matched study, measuring the foundational literacy and numeracy skills of our pupils and their academic peers in neighbouring schools to understand both absolute and relative pupil performance.  In the Bridge Effect, we highlight the results from the 2013-2014 administrations of EGRA/EGMA, based on a nationally representative sample of more than 2,700 pupils first assessed in October 2013.  

Key statistic

• Bridge pupils on average gained an additional 0.31 standard deviations (SD’s) in English and 0.9 SD’s in maths—equivalent to 32% more English and 13% more maths in a year.

Further statistics

• In English, 0.31 standard deviations — equivalent to over 32% more schooling in one academic year
• In maths, 0.09 standard deviations — equivalent to 13% more schooling in one academic year
• Bridge pupils learned to read almost 10 more words per minute and could also understand more of what they read, answering 10% more problems correctly than their public school counterparts
• For maths, gains are focused on the quantity discrimination and word problems, where Bridge pupils answer 10.1% and 5.8% more questions correctly, respectively.
• On average, 30% and 31% of Bridge pupils in this study passed the fluent and emergent benchmarks for reading, compared to 16% and 24% of pupils in public schools
•  In maths, where benchmarks are based on addition and subtraction, the difference persists and ranges from 2.6 to 6.9 percentage points

The study, spanning 13 counties in Kenya and adopts quasi-experimental methods to assess the efficacy of Bridge. It represents one of the most rigorous studies conducted by any practitioner educational or development organisation to date.