Aprender a Ler (ApaL) is a four-year USAID-funded program designed to improve student reading outcomes in grades 2 and 3 in selected schools in Nampula and Zambézia Provinces in Mozambique. Managed by World Education, Inc. (WEI), ApaL works closely with the Ministry of Education in Mozambique (MINED) to improve the quality and increase the quantity of reading instruction. The program includes teacher training, coaching and support in improved reading instruction methods, and school management training, coaching and support for school directors.

ApaL began with delivery of the program in 35 Zonas de Influencia Pedagogica (ZIPs) in six districts along the economic corridors of the provinces of Nampula and Zambézia. ZIPs are formed by one “head” school and a cluster of five, ten or more schools. The “head” school of a ZIP is usually better organized than the surrounding schools and is tasked with reporting to the district and receiving and distributing teaching material and resources that are sent by the MINED. The “head” of the ZIP schools also serve as an example and a magnet for training and improvement of the surrounding schools. Based on experience during initial implementation, expansion to approximately five hundred schools in the area was anticipated, and in 2015, ApaL expanded to 538 schools. USAID selected these provinces because at the time of program design, they contained 42 percent of the school age population of Mozambique. At the beginning of the 2013 school year, 180 schools clustered around the 35 ZIPs in the two provinces were randomly assigned by the IE to three groups – 60 schools to Full treatment, 60 to Medium treatment, and 60 to a no-treatment or Control group.

There have been four stages of reading assessment: (1) Baseline data collection and analysis at the beginning of the 2013 school year prior to program implementation; (2) Midline 1, near the end of the 2013 school year, after two or three months of implementation; (3) Midline 2, after a full year of implementation, 2014; and (4) the 2015 endline study.