An Impact Assessment of Baghch-e-Simsim: A Report on Findings from a Pilot Experimental Study

"It is heartening that an educational television series such as Baghch-e-Simsim has the potential to contribute to early childhood education in Afghanistan. In a context of economic and political challenges, such a mass media intervention carries the promise of offering informal educational opportunities to young children."

This small-scale, quasi-experimental study indicates that children learn important skills and knowledge by watching Baghch-e-Simsim, which is a locally developed Afghan version of Sesame Workshop's edutainment initiative Sesame Street. Designed for children aged 3 to 7, the television programme aims to help prepare young children for formal schooling and help older children foster basic educational skills. The project's whole-child curriculum addresses literacy, math, and socio-emotional skills. Girls' education is also a special focus of this project. (For further details on Baghch-e-Simsim, please see Related Summaries below.).

The 49 children, aged 4-9, who attend the private school designated as the intervention group in Kabul watched 3 episodes of Baghch-e-Simsim (Season 1) per week for the duration of the 8-week intervention (January/February and March/April 2013). The 52 children at the private school designated as the control group did not watch any episodes of the programme during the school day. Researchers created an assessment of children's learning from Baghch-e-Simsim based on the educational content represented in the series. The domains assessed included: literacy (letter identification and phonemic awareness), math (number identification, counting, shapes, and pattern completion), and socio-emotional skills (gender equity attitudes, emotions, prosocial reasoning, and knowledge of the community). Individual items in the assessment were aggregated into scales that capture these domains. The difference between children's performance at pre-test and post-test was used as the dependent variable in analyses.

During the 8-week period, children who watched the series regularly (3 times a week) demonstrated greater gains in basic skills (phonemic awareness and counting) than those who did not watch. They also were more able to recognise and describe emotions. Furthermore, they showed improvements in gender equity attitudes and were more likely to indicate that both boys and girls could be good at different tasks and have the same career possibilities. These findings were over and above the effects of age, the primary variable that differentiated children in the two groups on the outcomes of interest. (Specific findings are shared in figures 2-5 and several tables embedded in the paper.)

Furthermore, as suggested here, adult respondents had very positive perceptions of the programme. "In terms of its educational value, respondents unanimously agreed that Bagch-e-Sisim is educational, teaches their child problem solving, and encourages creativity and problem solving. They also largely agreed that it teaches a host of other skills, including basic skills, appreciating people from diverse backgrounds, and social skills. Respondents also rated the series highly on appeal, including its visual appeal, ability to make their child laugh, featuring stories that their child is interested in, holds their child's attention, and is entertaining and exciting. Adult respondents showed trust in the show and valued it - they reported that they enjoyed watching the show with their child and felt that the show was trusted and safe to watch. Importantly, they also agreed that the show looks and feels Afghan, which is a testament to the success of the co-production approach."

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