Testing Techniques for Achieving Statewide Progress on Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Goals in Uttar Pradesh

The Government of India has launched the NIPUN Bharat initiative to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary schools. Uttar Pradesh is aggressively implementing NIPUN Bharat in its 110,000 government primary schools which teach 6 million students in the target grades (1 to 3). A fundamental challenge in implementing a large public sector service delivery improvement initiative like this one is how to maintain focus and momentum among the 400,000 teachers who are the key to the initiative’s success. Toward this end, UP is testing a measurement plus gamification strategy -- using a smartphone app that allows teachers to assess individual students’ status relative to the literacy and numeracy goals at any time and incentivizing teachers and administrators at every level of local government to meet pre-defined targets. Using school-level randomization with 2700 schools spread across three experimental arms, the evaluation will assess the impact of the App-based measurement and gamification strategy on teaching practices and student achievement.