GIF’s grant to Lively Minds will improve the quality of life for children in four of the poorest regions in Ghana by supporting the Government of Ghana to adopt the Lively Minds programme. The programme integrates play schemes delivered by parents to existing kindergarten services which has been shown to improve children’s learning and boost parental engagement in early childhood education. An initial grant of $1.3 million was awarded to Lively Minds in 2017 to enable it to test its model of high-quality educational play schemes in kindergartens using local resources and volunteers from the community, complemented by a $785,000 grant to the Institute of Fiscal Studies to carry out a randomised control trial. This was followed by a $2.7 million grant in 2020 to support Lively Minds’ partnership with the Ghanaian Education Service to scale the innovation to 1,600 kindergarten schools in 24 districts; and delver the Likely Minds Together radio programme, which aimed to reach to reach poor households and focused on parenting guidance and advice on positive play.
The intervention and RCT address an important development issue affecting 200 million children, with significant long-term benefits on general productivity.
The play scheme is potentially an effective, low-cost, replicable model that addresses both demand and supply side issues and responds to many education, social, and health challenges simultaneously.
The intervention uses a scalable government service delivery system and has initial buy in from the Ghana Education Service, which has assessed the Lively Minds model to be ‘cost-effective, child-friendly and adaptable for use in Ghanaian kindergarten classrooms’ and has engaged its staff at the district level.
Robust study design and strong plans to generate evidence that is directly comparable and will complement existing research in ECCE in Ghana and contribute to the global public good.
Highly capable team, with a proven track record in using evidence in programme design and implementation, and with world class reputation on ECD research.
This intervention also supports a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals including: Goal 1 (No Poverty), 4 (Quality Education) and 5 (Gender Equality).
Click here to read Lively Mind’s Impact Brief.
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