Phone-Based Audio Lessons to Combat COVID Learning Loss

Project Background

Bangladesh nears universal primary enrollment, but rural children lag in basic literacy/numeracy—worsened by COVID-19 closures that hit poor households/girls hardest, with heavy chores, few resources, and dropout risks.
Digital divides persist: TV/internet miss rural poor (most have basic mobiles). This RCT tests Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI)-style toll-free audio lessons on feature phones for 1,500 primary children in 60 villages (500 control; 500 literacy/numeracy; 500 + behavioral skills), measuring COVID loss and gains in cognitive/non-cognitive outcomes, narrowing gender/socio-economic gaps.

Project Scope & Reach

60 southwestern rural villages; 1,500 primary-grade children from poor/vulnerable households (500 control, 500 Treatment 1: literacy/numeracy, 500 Treatment 2: + behavioral skills).

Key research partners

Monash University (Lead); Global Development & Research Initiative Foundation (GDRI, local partner).

Funding & Support

International research funding via ESRC DFID “Investing in Our Future” RCT infrastructure.

Roles of GDRI

Capacity Development and Intervention Design: Adapted IRI lessons (numeracy/literacy/behavioral) to national curriculum/local context (“Rising on Air” model); structured 15-week, 20-min toll-free IVR schedule; contributed to setup/testing, surveys/assessments, sampling, ethics/consent.
Field Implementation and Community Engagement: Recruited/trained enumerators/assessors for phone/household work; listed villages, collected baseline/midline/endline data; handled visits/tech fixes, monitoring, uptake tracking, barriers (gender/socio-economic), visual stories.
Data Management, Cleaning, and Analysis: Secure anonymized management; consistency checks/cleaning for cognitive/non-cognitive/household indicators; ANCOVA analysis (village FE, clustered SEs) for impacts/heterogeneity; outputs for reports/publications.