Strengthening Learning and Child Development in Brazilian Preschools Request For Proposals

Overview

The project “Strengthening Learning and Child Development in Brazilian Preschools”, a partnership between J-PAL LAC and Bracell Foundation, aims to identify promising preschool programs, evaluate their effectiveness, and support the scale-up of those that could truly enhance the development of 4-to-5-year-old children in Brazil. This project includes building partnerships with states and municipal departments of education of São Paulo, Bahia, and Mato Grosso do Sul, implementing partners, and the J-PAL research network. 

The Request for Proposals (RFP) of this project will provide competitive funding for randomized research projects that evaluate the impact of preschool programs on learning and development of children in Brazil.

Eligibility

Candidates belonging to the following groups are eligible to apply for funding:

• J-PAL affiliated researchers
• J-PAL invited researchers
• J-PAL post-doctoral fellows
• PhD students who have the support of a J-PAL affiliated researcher or invited researcher as part of their thesis committee

Additional consideration will be given to proposals that involve locally-based researchers and partners, as well as those with interdisciplinary co-authors from fields such as Education and Psychology, for example. 

See the RFP Overview for more details on the set of restrictions.

Ineligible applicants will be notified during LOI reviews and will not be invited to submit proposals.

Research Agenda

Early childhood education (ECE) is the first stage of basic education and a constitutional right for all Brazilian children (Brazil, 1996). However, Brazil ECE faces challenges related to equitable access and the quality of education considering socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, and geographic disparities (Raikes et al, 2023). While evidence highlights the benefits of attending preschool during early childhood and later in life (Conti et al., 2016; Heckman and Karapakula, 2019; Rossin-Slater and Wüst, 2020), it is important to note that the quality of education plays a crucial role in achieving these positive outcomes. The purpose of this project’s research agenda is to evaluate the effectiveness of preschool programs on learning and development of 4-to-5-year-old children in Brazil. Our goal is to test promising programs,  scale-up the effective ones, and also disseminate knowledge to inform public policies.

Geographic priorities

The geographic focus of this project is in the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul and Bahia in Brazil. J-PAL’ s network researchers are required to submit proposals for research conducted in municipalities of one of these three states.

Award types

This RFP invites proposals for Randomized Research Projects. Additionally, applicants can also request funds for implementing partners of preschool programs. 

Randomized Research projects (up to BRL 400,000,00*; suggested period of performance from January, 2025 until December, 2026): 

These grants are for research projects at a mature level of development. The research question must be clear and the applicants must demonstrate a commitment from implementing partners, a method of randomization, well-defined instruments, and sample size estimates.

*Under exceptional circumstances, the J-PAL Board may choose to award a higher amount of funding.

Implementing partners (up to BRL 300,000,00* suggested period of performance from January, 2025 until December, 2026):

Applicants of this RFP can also request up to BRL 300,000 for implementing partners of promising preschool programs. We will not fund proposals that request only implementing funds.

Characteristics of  promising preschool programs include:

• Being evidence-based
• Being aligned with the Brazilian National Common Curricular Base for Early Childhood Education (BNCC) and the National Curricular Guidelines for early childhood education (DCNEI)
• Having previous experiences of implementation at public preschools in Brazil
• Being open to share the materials for replications
• Feasible to be implemented in 2 years or less
• Having a previous evaluation of the implementing process that enabled to learn what worked or not in terms of program content, delivery strategy, duration, instruments, and other components. 
• Having potential for being scaled-up in other Brazilian municipalities.

We invite J-PAL’s research network to learn more about 9 preschool programs that want to evaluate their impact.

*Under exceptional circumstances, the J-PAL Board may choose to award a higher amount of funding.

Application Instructions

1. Please visit our website and download the template file that contains the Letter of Interest (LOI). Fill out the document and send it to [email protected] by Monday, October 7th, 2024, at 7:00 PM UTC-3. 
   • The LOI is an expression of interest categorized by filling in some initial information. This step serves for the project team to analyze pertinence and eligibility and is eliminatory. The project team will notify you once we have reviewed your LOI and if you are clear to begin filling out your proposal.
2. If you receive an invitation to apply, please submit your proposal including all required documents, via email to [email protected] by Monday, November 4, 2024, at 7:00 PM UTC-3. Please find below the list of required documents for submission:
   • RFP Application 
   • Budget for Research (RCT)
   • Budget for Implementation Costs (if necessary)
   • Letters of support 
   • Project execution schedule and description of the activities 
   • Term of approval and consent 
   • Statement of adherence to policies and standards 
   • Declaration of awareness and agreement with the general terms and conditions of the financial aid contract 

Please be sure to submit your budget in BRL (Brazilian Real). The project is funded by donations in Brazilian Real (BRL) and will make all awards in BRL.

To facilitate your proposal development, we have hosted reference documents on the RFP website that outline in detail all required information that applicants will be asked to provide when submitting a proposal. For any inquiries, please contact our team at [email protected]. Assistance is available in both English and Portuguese.

General tips for proposal development

For general advice on developing a successful proposal, please visit our Research Resource page on grant proposals.