Continuous learning and improvement

By Fernanda Gándara
Director of Research, Monitoring and Reporting for Room to Read's Gender Equality Portfolio

Every year, Room to Read’s global research, monitoring and evaluation team produces multiple reports on the effectiveness our literacy and gender equality programming. These reports are reviewed by our staff to help us continuously evolve and improve our approach, helping us benefit more children, more quickly. And every year, our team identifies patterns across our evaluations and research. Our insights from 2024 gender equality reporting reveal four major themes:

Educators appreciate activity-based and student-centered activities, yet they need extensive support in their adoption

Our research on Room to Read’s Climate Justice Clubs in Nepal and Vietnam, and on our Boys’ Inclusion Pilot¹ in Cambodia, reveal that educators possess high interest and appreciation in these methodologies but need extra support to properly implement them. Educators may need support with practical decisions, such as choosing the right number of students to collaborate in each activity and with planning the additional classroom preparation that hands-on activities require. In addition, educators may need additional resources to enhance student-centered learning (e.g. new technology or colored paper sheets) and continuous support. Educators believe that technical topics such as climate and/or new topics, such as gender, may require continuous support, as opposed to one-time training.

Within Room to Read’s gender equality programming, the gender composition of the classroom matters to participants

This theme echoes what the literature on gender programming has shown before, which is that there are optimal ways in which to delivered gender and life skills programming to students. Our work on the Boys’ Inclusion Pilot in Cambodia, particularly our qualitative evaluations¹, reveal a clear preference on the side of students to discuss gender content with peers and instructors of the same gender, but to provide opportunities to practice new skills in multi-gender spaces.

Financial education needs to be coupled with psychosocial components

Room to Read’s Financial Education Initiative in Tanzania has revealed that girls who were also participating in our comprehensive Girls’ Education Program benefitted from the content the most. Girls who participated in Room to Read’s financial literacy lessons and in Room to Read’s life skills sessions had significantly better outcomes in terms of entrepreneurial attitudes and savings behaviors than peers who did not attend these life skills sessions. Evaluations conducted in previous years show similar results and may suggest that life skills programming can also enhance financial knowledge.

Employing mixed methods is essential in gender equality programming

In 2024, the biggest learnings that we were able to generate came from a thoughtful alternation between quantitative and qualitative methodologies. While we wanted to understand whether the different variations of our program impacted outcomes of interest, we wanted to understand how and why. Therefore, our work on the Climate Justice Clubs in Nepal and Vietnam, and the Boys’ Inclusion Pilot in Cambodia, involved mixed methods, allowing our staff to test our theories of change and their assumptions. Qualitative work also provides the opportunity to elevate the voices of participants and to learn from their experiences; to what extent are participants engaged in their own learning experience? And what can we do to respond to their own needs? Moving forward, we will amplify the qualitative portions of our work in both our traditional evaluations and in the new innovations to come.

We look to 2025 excited to continue learning and improving our programming to ensure all children have access to a quality education and can live fulfilling lives of their choosing. Upcoming challenges for our team involve clear ways to share knowledge back with participants and to connect qualitative and quantitative work, longitudinally. Our research, monitoring and evaluation team will continue to share insights in the year ahead, as we write the next chapter of Room to Read’s story.