This blog features Dr. Cecelia Cassell, Dean of the William V.S. Tubman Teachers College at the University of Liberia, and chair of the CATALYZE T4ECE Liberia Task Force. Over the next year, the University of Liberia will be leading the T4ECE Liberia Task Force as they work towards developing a standardized and national tool for assessment early learning outcomes and school readiness. Read more as Dr. Cassell reflects on the progresses made and what is to come as Liberia moves forward with its vision to create a national integrated ECD data collection and management system.

This brief provides an overview of country-led T4ECE research projects focused on addressing gaps in evidence and data-driven decision-making in Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, and South Africa.

Together for Early Childhood Evidence convened a panel at the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Conference to share country-level plans for research in Malawi, Rwanda, Liberia, and South Africa to advance goals for data-driven early childhood systems.

This blog features Colin Almeleh, the Director of Knowledge, Information and Data Solutions at Ilifa Labantwana.  Over the next year, Ilifa Labantwana will be leading the T4ECE South Africa Task Force as they build consensus around a set of key indicators to be included in a new ECD M&E Framework for the National ECD Policy. Read more as Colin reflects on the progresses made in South Africa and his hopes and vision for what is to come.

As we start 2024, ECD Measure proudly reflects on 2023 as a year of growth and impact. We dedicated ourselves to empowering stakeholders to collect and use early childhood data. We are grateful for our partnerships around the world with researchers, governments, and NGOs who are building data-driven early childhood care and education (ECCE) systems that focus on children thriving and learning.

Dr. Joan Lombardi, a guest author for ECD Measure, reflects on issues in the early childhood measurement and evidence field.

2022 was an exciting year for the ECD Measure team as we partnered with early childhood practitioners and researchers in the US, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and Asia to work towards data-driven early childhood systems. In the past year, we worked in 17 countries and served more than 450 educators, 6 implementing organizations, 4 research teams, and dozens of program coaches, administrators and policymakers. Indirectly, more than 4,000 children and their parents benefit from our products, which are designed to lead to improved quality and outcomes.

The goal of the workshop was to bring together people who gather and use early childhood data in their countries to discuss how we can collectively move towards more data-informed early childhood care and education (ECCE) systems in Africa. Over the course of the two-day workshop, participants had the opportunity to work within and across country teams to learn about country examples of early childhood data generation and use, identify where their countries are on the path of developing a data-driven ECCE system, and develop common country visions for moving forward.

This blog provides an overall summary to the Together for Early Childhood Evidence 2-day workshop in Mauritius in October 2022.

In 2021 and 2022, Together for Early Childhood Evidence provided four country grants in Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda and South Africa to support local research activities to inform programmatic and policy decisions facing early childhood education (ECE). These projects brought together policymakers, researchers and practitioners committed to testing and applying new approaches to data use. This brief summarizes the four country-led research activities addressing gaps in data-driven decision making in sub-Saharan Africa.

In this blog, we hear from the Liberia T4ECE country task force team about their experience in developing a catalogue of ECE programs and quality indicators and how the data collected will be used to help focus and manage resources to improve the quality of ECE in Liberia.

This blog explores how nationally representative classroom observational data collected in Rwanda by government officials will be used to make positive impacts on the quality of early learning and how the T4ECE team hopes this will create a shift in the culture of data communication and data use.

In this blog, we feature the Thrive by Five Index, South Africa’s first nationally representative survey of preschool children. It provides data on 4-5-year-old children’s developmental outcomes that will inspire action and change so that all children have the chance to flourish by the age of five.

In this blog, we hear from Dr. Menelik Desta, Executive Director of ESRI, and Professor Belay Kibret of Addis Ababa University as they discuss the T4ECE task force team's experience in synthesizing and compiling ECDE evidence and resources in Ethiopia.

As part of the 2022 CIES conference, Together for Early Childhood Evidence led a panel focused on country-led research activities in Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda and South Africa that support strengthening and developing effective early childhood monitoring and measurement systems.

In this blog we hear from Save the Children Rwanda as they, with the support of T4ECE, collect for the first time ever nationally representative data on the quality of pre-primary and primary classroom and children's learning outcomes.

The main goal of having early childhood education (ECE) data is to inform planning, resource allocation, and support, and to address the challenges of quality and access. The South Africa team completed CPDMA Diagnostic Toolkit in 2019 and identified data needs at two levels: service delivery (for parents, teachers and school administrators) and policy level (for district-, state- and national-level governments).

Four CPDMA taskforce countries (Liberia, Rwanda, South Africa and Ethiopia) have been working together since early 2019 to map out their ECE data systems and develop plans to use data to improve outcomes for children.

Guide developed through the Consortium on Pre-Primary Data and Measurement in Africa (CPDMA). Outlines a framework for developing and using high-impact data in ECE systems.

CPDMA and ECD Measure convened ECE Data Utilization to Impact Change Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. In the spirit of “what gets measured gets done,” the ECD Measure team provided context for the meeting around its “Data for Impact Framework,” which outlines the process for defining how early childhood data can be used for impact in early childhood education systems.