Trial design
MAY
This is a cluster-randomised controlled trial where the recruited clusters are villages in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, India. The villages included satisfied the following criteria:Were considered rural, with fewer than 2500 population and with more than 120 children under the age of 6 years;Were accessible by road;Weren’t within a 5 km radius of the Community Health Centres (as such villages are already well-served by the local health services);Had a minimum of 3 km between village centres, such buffer zones being included to minimize contamination.From a baseline survey conducted between July 2017 and January 2018 we enrolled children born between 16 June 2010 and 15 June 2013 whose caregivers were planning to enrol them in the first grade, for the first time, in the 2018–2019 school year in eligible villages. Before randomization of villages, from April-June 2019, we conducted a catch-up enumeration in all the selected villages to enrol eligible children who were missed during the baseline enumeration (this included some children who were by this time attending school). Villages were allocated in a 1:1 ratio to either the intervention (a programme provided by Pratham intending to provide remedial out-of-school lessons, focusing on literacy and numeracy, 6 days a week, 2 h a day for 17 months), or to control.Planned daily classes were temporarily stopped in compliance with government measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission from April-Dec 2020 and May–June 2021. The intervention was restarted with modifications according to the local COVID-19 guidelines such as daily small group and weekly (for children who couldn’t attend daily classes) classes. The intervention period was also extended by 12 months, ending in June 2022.Between 24