Remedial Programming and Skill-Targeted SEL in Low-Income and Crisis-Affected Contexts: Experimental Evidence From Niger

Abstract Despite substantial cross-national interest in remedial programming as a way to support low-achieving students, evidence of its effectiveness is rare, particularly in low-income and/or crisis-affected contexts. In this article, we present experimental evidence of the impact of a remedial tutoring program on academic outcomes from a two-level randomized trial of two treatments in Niger: school randomization testing the impact of skill-targeted SEL activities and within-school student-level randomization testing the impact of access to remedial tutoring. We find that tutoring for 4 h per week improves students’ literacy and Math outcomes, and the addition of skill-targeted SEL activities positively impacts school grades above and beyond access to tutoring alone. These findings suggest the potential value of remedial tutoring to supplement formal schooling in low-income and/or conflict-affected contexts. They also suggest increased attention to implementation strategies, as access alone was insufficient for students to attain grade-level competencies.