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).

Mozambique is at a critical moment for early childhood education (ECE). Following the large-scale pilot of a community-based ECE program (known by its Portuguese acronym DICIPE- Desenvolvimento Integral da Criança em Idade Pré-Escolar), the country is now planning for the future scale-up of ECE interventions. A series of three separate evaluations of the pilot—a Process Evaluation, an Impact Evaluation, and a Costing Exercise—are in progress to help improve program quality and inform the scaling up of services.

In recent years, more and more children worldwide have access to pre-primary education. As access expands, it’s important to keep our attention focused on quality – the elements of the learning environment that determine children’s experiences in early childhood education. Quality can be viewed from a child’s viewpoint – what she gets to do during the day; how she feels about her teachers and friends; and whether she has opportunities to stretch and grow while receiving help when she needs it.

ECD Measure has recently developed the Brief Early Quality Inventory (BEQI) tool, which is designed to capture key components of play-based learning and interactions between teachers and children. Building off of research from other ECE quality tools, including our team’s extensive experience with the Measuring Early Learning Environment (MELE) tool of the MELQO project, we recognized the need for simpler ways to gather context-specific evidence on quality environments.

The ECD Measure team, in partnership with in-country consultants, recently completed a project to explore how early childhood stakeholders in Lesotho and Tanzania define quality pre-primary programs.

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.

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.

CPDMA Member Spotlight on Liberia. Liberia is at a critical moment for early childhood education. According to the 2019 UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, 88 percent of Liberian children are enrolled in an ECE program at least one year before primary school entry. However, it is common for overage children to enter ECE programs; nearly 50 percent of pre-primary learners are 6 years of age or older.

Access to quality early childhood education (ECE) before starting formal schooling can make an enormous positive difference to children’s learning and development. As part of its new education policy, USAID is now actively supporting countries in building effective early childhood systems. In support of this effort, we are pleased to announce the initiation of a Consortium on Pre-Primary Education Data & Measurement in sub-Saharan Africa.