This study assessed a 6-month phone-based early childhood development (ECD) intervention for Syrian and Jordanian caregivers in Jordan

Reach Up and Learn (RUL) is a home-visiting program that was introduced in Jamaica in 1975. In 2016, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), in collaboration with the Arab Resource Collective, adapted RUL for the context of Syrian and host community families in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and integrated RUL into its education, child protection, and health programs in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

In this insightful brief, we delve into the transformative power of the Core Practice approach—a beacon of hope for educators working in challenging environments. The Core Practice framework introduces evidence-based, high-impact teaching techniques that promise not only to enhance student learning outcomes but also to provide a practical, coherent, and adaptable solution for teacher professional development.

The last few decades have seen immense gains in global recognition of the critical importance of early childhood education (ECE). Despite this, the goal of universal ECE – as we have traditionally defined it – has remained aspirational: with little progress since 2015 toward the universal quality ECE called for in SDG 4.2. Partly, this is due to financial constraints and continued limited investment in ECE. But partly, it is because there are contexts in which setting up in-person pre-school and kindergarten classrooms is not viable.

NYU’s Global TIES research finds that introducing an Arabic version of Sesame Street, along with support services, helped kids ‘not just survive, but thrive’

In this brief, Global TIES researchers evaluate the effects of Ahlan Simsim, a television show co-produced by Sesame Workshop and Jordan Pioneers that has been viewed by more than 23 million children across the MENA region, including 57% of displaced Syrians across Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq.

الوصف: في هذا الملخص، قام باحثو مركز جلوبال تايز (Global TIES) بتقييم برنامج تربوي قائم عبر الهاتف لتنمية الطفولة المبكرة في الشرق الأوسط، وهو أول تقييم عشوائي محكم لمثل هذه البرامج في المنطقة. على الرغم من أهمية هذه البرامج خاصة في سياقات الأزمات والظروف الإنسانية التي تعرقل تنفيذ البرامج حضورياً إلا أن المعلومات حول آثار برامج تنمية الطفولة المبكرة المقدمة عن بُعد تعتبر قليلة. في عام 2020، قامت اللجنة الدولية للإغاثة بتكييف برنامج التربية الذي يتم تقديمه حضوريًا على شكل زيارات منزلية ليتم تقديمه عن بُعد عبر مكالمات هاتفية صوتية فقط، مما أتاح فرصة فريدة لتقييم برنامج تربوي مقدم عن بعد. البرنامج الحضوري الأصلي الذي تم تعديله يُدعى "Reach up and Learn-RUL" وقد قدمته اللجنة الدولية للإغاثة من عام 2016 حتى بداية عام 2020 في أجزاء من الأردن، واستهدف كلًا من المربين الأردنيين والسوريين. تم إجراء التعديلات لتقديمه عن بُعد كاستجابة للجائحة وكجزء من مبادرة "أهلاً سمسم" بالتعاون مع "ورشة سمسم".

الوصف: في هذا الملخص، يعرض الباحثون في مركز جلوبال تايز (Global TIES) نتائج تقيّم أثر برنامج أهلًا سمسم، وهو برنامج تلفزيوني قامت بإنتاجه ورشة عمل سمسم ومؤسسة جوردن بيونيرز (Jordan Pioneers TV Production)، والذي جذبت حلقاته أنظار أكثر من 23 مليون طفل في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا، بما في ذلك W من النازحين السوريين في الأردن ولبنان والعراق. تعد هذه الدراسة من أولى الدراسات التي من شأنها تقييم الأثر السببي لبرنامج إعلامي 1) تم تصميمه لبلدان الشرق الأوسط المتأثرة بالنزاع السوري وأزمة اللاجئين و 2) يركز على التطور العاطفي لدى الأطفال في المرحلة التمهيدية. وجدت الدراسة تأثيرات إيجابية على الأطفال فيما يتعلق ب: ١) معرفة برنامج أهلا سمسم وشخصياته ٢) التعرّف العاطفي المعبرّ (القدرة على تحديد العواطف المصورة بشكل صحيح) ٣) القدرة على تحديد عواطف الآخرين في سيناريوهات اجتماعية محددة ٤) ذكر استراتيجية التنفس كطريقة إدارة العواطف القوية وهي إحدى استراتيجيات تنظيم العواطف الست التي يركز عليها منهج "أهلًا سمسم".

Science is the most useful when it catalyzes change. In this tool, we provide actionable recommendations and guidance on how to best support education in emergencies, to get the evidence into the capable hands of the education stakeholders.

This concept note describes the frameworks, concepts and methods of the project in which NYU Global TIES for Children (NYU-TIES) and the Universidad de los Andes are working to strengthen holistic learning monitoring and evaluation systems in Colombia and Peru (main recipients of Venezuelan refugee and migrant families).

Despite substantial cross-national interest in remedial programming as a way to support low-achieving students, evidence of its effectiveness is rare, particularly in low-income and/or crisis-affected contexts. In this article, we present experimental evidence of the impact of a remedial tutoring program on academic outcomes from a two-level randomized trial of two treatments in Niger: school randomization testing the impact of skill-targeted SEL activities and within-school student-level randomization testing the impact of access to remedial tutoring.

This brief is prepared to provide recommendations on promising and practical approaches to support education during the acute crises period in Ukraine and to mitigate the impacts of the Russian invasion on children’s learning and wellbeing. It is primarily designed to support multilateral and bilateral organizations, as well as other actors and stakeholders, to identify priorities and approaches to support education for children affected by the Ukraine crisis. In this brief, we provide:

1. An overview of the conditions of education for Ukrainian children thus far

2. Options and priorities for supporting the children affected by the Russian Invasion, both (a) for the children remaining in Ukraine and (b) for the Ukrainian refugee children in neighboring host countries.

3. State of evidence and implications of future responses and research

This first brief in the NYU Global TIES for Children (NYU-TIES) series presents preliminary findings collected as part of the pre-pilot and pilot phases of one of their Play to Learn impact evaluations and a longitudinal study. The impact evaluation, led by NYU-TIES, investigates BRAC's flexible, hybrid home-visiting program in Cox’s Bazar which seeks to engage fathers as well as mothers and the longitudinal study features three-cohorts from prenatal and birth which follow young Rohingya children through their first years of life. The data in this brief looks specifically at Rohingya fathers’ perceptions of play.

The COVID-19 outbreak ignited a monumental education emergency, disrupting in-person learning and relying on technological schooling solutions that exacerbated many pre-existing education inequities. Lack of child care options, inconsistent access to technology, and variable quality of remote learning experiences all contributed to some students’ infrequent or complete lack of attendance to virtual schooling. As kids go back to in-person learning, schools and educators face a critical question: How do we handle students who have missed most or all of remote learning?

Image credit: IRC

Refugee children face a constellation of risks in their home country, when they're on the move, and after they arrive in host countries. Our research with Syrian refugee children in Lebanon adds to a growing body of evidence that such experiences of adversity can impact the foundational cognitive and behavioral skills that forecast later learning. The most consistent risk for later learning challenges we identified among Syrian refugee children enrolled in Lebanese public school was being older than expected for the grade in which they were placed, what we call "age for grade." Syrian refugee children who were older than expected for their grade level had poorer executive functioning, behavioral regulation, literacy, and numeracy skills than children who were a typical age for their grade.

To generate the evidence needed to understand, improve and share what works to help refugee children learn and succeed in school, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and NYU Global TIES for Children (TIES/NYU) established a strategic partnership, the Evidence for Action: Education in Emergencies (3EA) initiative. In Lebanon, this program was designed and delivered to complement the Lebanese public education system and enhance learning and retention of Syrian refugee children through remedial tutoring programs infused with climate-targeted social-emotional learning (SEL) principles and practices (Tutoring in a Healing Classrooms - HCT) and skill-targeted SEL interventions (Mindfulness activities, Brain Games, 5-Component SEL Curriculum).

To generate the evidence needed to understand, improve and share what works to help refugee children learn and succeed in school, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and NYU Global TIES for Children (TIES/NYU) established a strategic partnership, the Evidence for Action: Education in Emergencies (3EA) initiative. 3EA in Niger was designed and delivered to help strengthen the public education system in Niger and to serve refugee, IDP and host community children in the hard-hit Diffa region. It strove to achieve this through a remedial tutoring program infused with climate-targeted social-emotional learning (SEL) principles and practices (Tutoring in a Healing Classrooms), and adding skill-targeted SEL interventions (Mindfulness activities, Brain Games).