USAID Grant for Pre-Primary Education Continuity in South Africa Post-COVID

This program is authorized in accordance with Part 1 of the Foreign Assistance act of 1961, as amended.

Through this Addendum to the Science, Technology, Innovation and Partnership (STIP) Annual Program Statement (APS) No. 7200AA21APS00003 (the STIP APS Full Announcement), USAID is making a special call for the submission of Concept Notes focused on Continuity of Pre-Primary Education post COVID-19 using Community Engagement and Edutainment in South Africa.

This activity aims to support the expansion and dissemination of relevant educational video content and other educational content and materials to pre-primary learners in South Africa. While there is much focus on the use of new and innovative technologies for strengthening educational systems and reaching learners, a historic constant has been the well-documented and compelling cases of the use of video or television segments to support developing country educational objectives. Whether as complements to broader education projects or as standalone interventions, educational videos that are well-constructed, evidence-based, and of appropriate pedagogy can uniquely capture the imagination of learners, drive social and behavior change, and provide important tools for professional development of teachers. While the use of these tools for in-classroom instruction is also effective, the expansion of educational television, and other forms of mass media instruction (collectively referred to as “edutainment” platforms), are particularly compelling in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has had enormous detrimental impacts on educational attainment worldwide. Moving forward, development of new edutainment approaches and expansion of existing ones must be part of a comprehensive disaster preparedness strategy.

The use of co-creation will determine the objective(s), however, possible ideas could be to:

1)     Develop and test low-cost video dissemination and projection devices to deliver high-quality educational video content, particularly in lower-resource settings;

2)     Support families within the context of their own homes with materials and in-person activities to promote children’s learning and use of self-regulation techniques;

3)     Develop mobile play material (toy) libraries and screen COVID-related edutainment for children and their families who are in the most need;

4)     Engage a local institution of higher education to track student, family, and community outcomes; and

5)     Instill Learning Through Play methodologies in parents, caregivers, and early childhood educators, in partnership with the LEGO Foundation.

USAID may allocate up to $1.5 million over the course of two years to fund a portfolio of partnerships. Ideally, the portfolio will enable USAID to ensure that each of the above objectives is advanced. However, priority will be placed on supporting the most promising approaches, even if the resulting portfolio only advances one or two of the objectives described above.