ASSESSING THE GENERAL EDUCATION QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM THROUGH EARLY READING SKILLS: EVIDENCE FROM SELECTED PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Integrating quality with access is a main challenge globally, notably in low income countries such as Ethiopia. The government in Ethiopia has put a special emphasis on addressing issues of quality of education and is supporting its efforts. A large body of literature has recently been developed concerning quality in educational settings, there is no commonly agreed and accepted definition of this concept .Quality education is a dynamic concept that changes and evolves with time as well as in the social, economic, and environmental contexts of place. There is no question that Ethiopia experienced massive improvement in access to education which can be taken as extraordinary achievements in terms of increasing enrolment, but education quality still remains a challenge. The purpose of this research was to investigate the children’s reading skills in the context of the GEQIP and the rapidly changing primary school environment through early grade reading assessments in selected primary schools in Addis Ababa. The study was employed a quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data that were gathered through questionnaire from the 240 respondents were analyzed by descriptive and regression analysis using the statistical package for social science (SPSS 26) program. As revealed from the study over about 10% of sampled students in both Grades 1and 2, , were non- reader in Grade 1 and Grade 2 (9.94%) and 11.6%) respectively and the proportion of students designated high in programmed school, the high percentages of students who lacked basic reading skills signifies both the need and potential for improvement.. The proportion of students who read fluently more than doubled from Grade 1 to Grade 2 in both schools and the number of children reading with fluency grew markedly with slight increase in program school. Regarding students zero scores were low on aggregate in many ERGA subtasks, in program implemented school than non-programmed one. Moreover the percent correct of total for both grades were exceeds above 50% for all grades and a little rise in the programmed schools for Oral Reading Fluency. In sum, students participated in this study are actively trying to read and, in particular, to perform higher-order reading tasks like comprehension, Similarly, reading performance varied substantially by grades in both study schools. Moreover, Student age, gender differences, Students who attended preschool tended, students who reported being absent from school tended to perform less well on the Oral Reading subtask than their peers who had not missed school, class materials (e.g., reading textbook) - and students who did have their textbook were associated with reading performance have a statistically significant association with oral reading fluency. Whereas, several background variables that are typically associated with greater reading performance, such as parental literacy and household SES, were not linked to better reading outcomes in this study. Correspondingly, teacher experiences and qualification were found to have a statistically significant relationship with reading performance on the ORF portion in both schools. Recommendation based on findings are presented and discussed,