Bridging Culture, Research, and Practice in Early Childhood Development: The Madrasa Resource Centers in East Africa

Using Data Tools and Systems to Drive Change in Early Childhood Education for Disadvantaged Children in South Africa

In line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.2, South Africa's National Development Plan commits to providing high-quality early childhood education to all children by 2030 to drive improved child outcomes. Prior to 2016, South Africa lacked reliable, locally standardised, valid, and cross-culturally fair assessment tools for measuring preschool quality and child outcomes, suitable for use at scale within a resource-constrained context. In this paper we detail the development and evolution of a suite of early learning measurement (ELOM) tools designed to address this measurement gap. The development process included reviews of literature and other relevant assessment tools; a review of local curriculum standards and expected child outcomes; extensive consultation with government officials, child development experts, and early learning practitioners, iterative user testing; and assessment of linguistic, cultural, functional, and metric equivalence across all 11 official South African languages. To support use of the ELOM tools at scale, and by users with varying levels of research expertise, administration is digitised and embedded within an end-to-end data value chain. ELOM data collected since 2016 quantify the striking socio-economic gradient in early childhood development in South Africa, demonstrate the relationship between physical stunting, socio-emotional functioning and learning outcomes, and provide evidence of the positive impact of high-quality early learning programmes on preschool child outcomes. To promote secondary analyses, data from multiple studies are regularly collated into a shared dataset, which is made open access via an online data portal. We describe the services and support that make up the ELOM data value chain, noting several key challenges and enablers of data-driven change within this context. These include deep technical expertise within a multidisciplinary and collaborative team, patient and flexible capital from mission-aligned investors, a fit-for-purpose institutional home, the appropriate use of technology, a user-centred approach to development and testing, sensitivity to children's diverse linguistic and socio-economic circumstances, careful consideration of requirements for scale, appropriate training and support for a non-professional assessor base, and a commitment to ongoing learning and continuous enhancement. Practical examples are provided of ways in which the ELOM tools and data are used for programme monitoring and enhancement purposes, to evaluate the relative effectiveness of early learning interventions, to motivate for greater budget and inform more effective resource allocation, to support the development of enabling Government systems, and to track progress towards the attainment of national and global development goals. We share lessons learnt during the development of the tools and discuss the factors that have driven their uptake in South Africa.

The development of a South African Early Learning Outcomes Measure: A South African instrument for measuring early learning program outcomes

BACKGROUND

Assessment of early childhood development programme effectiveness in South Africa is hampered by a lack of suitable measures that account for variations in cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and can be administered by non-professionals. This contribution reports the standardisation of the South African Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM), an instrument designed for population level monitoring of the developmental status of children aged 50-69 months and for evaluation of early learning programmes.

METHODS

The development of the ELOM was informed by South Africa's National Curriculum Framework from Birth to Four and its National Early Learning and Development Standards. ELOM items were drawn from reliable and valid instruments, particularly those used in Africa and other developing regions and were clustered in five domains: gross motor development, fine motor coordination and visual motor integration, emergent numeracy and mathematics, cognition and executive functioning, emergent literacy and language. The ELOM was standardised on a sample of 1,331 children aged 50-69 months, from five South African official languages and five socio-economic strata. Item Response Theory techniques were used to establish reliability, validity, and differential item functioning.

RESULTS

Confirmatory Factor Analysis established that ELOM domains are unidimensional and internally consistent. Items discriminate reliably between more and less able children and do not discriminate unfairly between children of the same ability from different language backgrounds. Socio-economic gradients were evident in children's performance. South African Early Learning Development Standards (ELDS) based on standard scores were developed and set at the 60th percentile of the sample standard score distribution.

CONCLUSIONS

This research produced the first South African, age-validated population-level standardised instrument that can be administered relatively cheaply by trained non-professionals. This will facilitate the assessment of the efficacy of early learning programmes in enabling children to reach ELDS prior to entering Grade R and track progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4.2.

No data, no problem, no action: parenting programs in low-income countries. Making the social-emotional outcomes more visible

BACKGROUND

Parenting programs are delivered in many low income countries in an effort to address the effects of insufficient cognitive stimulation, major social-emotional risk factors related to inadequate caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness, maternal depression, violence and biological risk factors. However, the outcomes of these programs are often untested because of methodological limitations in the existing evaluation tools available for cross-cultural research, and especially those related to social-emotional development and functioning.

METHOD

This study takes an approach that involves organizing data from focus groups collected following caregiver participation in a parenting program, Learning Through Play (LTP) delivered in 11 low income countries. The LTP program has as its aim to increase parent knowledge and influence parental practice regarding the essential components of early development of children aged birth to 6 years. The purpose of systematically organizing focus group data was to illustrate a means by which program developers worldwide can discuss outcomes of program participation, particularly in social-emotional domains that have been overlooked in past studies on parenting programs.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The findings from this study suggest that qualitative outcome data can be organized to make the social-emotional outcomes of participation in parenting programs more visible.