An exciting new report reveals impressive learning gains achieved at Bridge Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) in just four months. The first study on learning gains to be released as part of the innovative PSL program designed to transform education in Liberia, shows that Bridge schools have led to a significant improvement in reading and maths for its pupils.

The report Learning in Liberia has jointly been released by the Liberian Ministry of Education, Pencils of Promise, The Dean of Education at the University of Liberia and Bridge PSL public schools.

The Liberian Minister for Education, George K. Werner has called the results ‘both exciting and encouraging’ and the Professor of Education at Liberia University said he believes ‘this is one of the best things that has happened to Liberia’.

• CLICK HERE to download the complete Learning in Liberia report.

The report reveals that in just four months, students in Bridge PSL public schools could:

• Read 7 more words a minute and answer 6% more questions correctly about the story they just read;
• In maths, they solved 2.6 more addition problems & 2.2 more subtraction problems in a minute;
• 17% of Bridge PSL public school second graders met reading fluency benchmark for the first time, compared to only 4% of second graders at traditional public schools;
• 15% of Bridge PSL public schools students met reading comprehension benchmarks for first time, compared to 4% of students at traditional public schools;
• In reading, Bridge PSL public school students outperformed traditional public school students in reading by 0.77 standard deviations; and,
• In maths Bridge PSL public school students outperformed traditional public school students by 0.18 standard deviations: that’s 50% more learning in 4 months.

Bridge PSL public school students made more progress toward achieving national literacy benchmarks.

The data demonstrates that students in Bridge PSL public schools are experiencing accelerated learning in comparison to their peers in other schools. Lessons learned from these Partnership Schools for Liberia can be brought into all public schools in Liberia. These early findings also show the direct and immediate benefits to children of Partnership Schools for Liberia itself.

The Ministry of Education recently gave Bridge an ‘A’ rating on the basis of ‘significant quality of implementation’ and allocated it an estimated 43 additional schools for year two of the pilot, taking the total to 68 public schools during the next academic year.

Bridge is one of eight operators supporting the Liberian government towards its reform of the Liberian education system in meeting the urgent need for quality public nursery and primary schools. Every child should have access to high-quality education.

Click here to listen to an ELBC News report on Learning in Liberia report from 17 July 2017.