This blog features Noella Kabarungi, Senior Education Technical Specialist at Save the Children International Rwanda, and a member of the CATALYZE T4ECE Rwanda Task Force. Over the next year, Save the Children Rwanda will be leading the T4ECE Rwanda Task Force as they work towards defining and piloting country-level benchmarks for IDELA scores based on national early childhood development standards. Learn more from Noella, as she reflects on progress made and upcoming priorities through T4ECE in Rwanda.

This blog features Loveness Muluta-Musiyapo, Early Childhood Development Specialist and lecturer from the University of Malawi, and a member of the CATALYZE T4ECE Malawi Task Force. Over the next year, the University of Malawi will be leading the T4ECE Malawi Task Force as they work towards developing a functional national ECD Management Information System for Malawi. . Learn more from Loveness, as she reflects on progress made and upcoming priorities through T4ECE in Malawi.

This blog features Dr. Menelik Desta, Executive Director of Ethiopia School Readiness Initiative and a representative on the CATALYE T4ECE Ethiopia Task Force. Over the next year, the T4ECE Ethiopia Task Force will work to expand the existing Knowledge Hub, an online repository to collect and share ECDE resources across Ethiopia, and engage in capacity building exercises to strengthen knowledge around early childhood data and measurement. Read more as Dr. Menelik reflects on what is to come as the T4ECE teams works towards building the collective knowledge base of ECE throughout Ethiopia.

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).