Results of the Monitoring Early Learning Quality Outcomes Pilot Efforts in Kenya and Tanzania

• In Event: Ready for School? Integrating Learning and Child Development Under the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes project is developing and validating measures of children’s learning and development, to provide feasible, actionable data on children’s learning and development at the start of formal schooling, between the ages of four and seven years, and to provide information on quality of children’s learning environments in the years immediately preceding enrollment in formal schooling (i.e., the pre-primary or preschool years). It is anticipated that MELQO will become a key tool for tracking progress against the SDG indicator for school readiness. MELQO is a consortium led by UNICEF, UNESCO, World Bank and Brookings Institution with partnership on technical development from Save the Children, the Inter-American Development Bank and several independent experts representing universities and organizations from many regions. Initiated in 2014, MELQO has held two key expert meetings focused on measurement of child development and learning and quality of learning environments (meeting notes are available upon request). MELQO is a consortium working across several organizations and funders, with a long-term goal of promoting measurement of children’s learning and development and quality of learning environments at scale. The overall goals of field-testing initiated in several countries in 2015 include:
• Validate tools of children’s development and learning, intended for children between the ages of 4 and 7 years and for use at scale by national governments, by designing and conducting studies establishing reliability, concurrent and construct validity for items focused on early mathematics, literacy, social-emotional development and executive function;
• Validate tools of quality of children’s learning environments by testing the items within schools; performing concurrent validity tests;
• Examine how measures can lead to change in the quality of children’s learning environments, by interviewing key stakeholders on the feasibility and usefulness of the measures, and identifying how they can be integrated into systems over time.
Research questions include the following:
• Are the measures valid and reliable, with acceptable psychometric properties? Do they show adequate construct validity and reliability when used across a large sample? How much do the items need to be adapted to be workable within local context, and does the degree of adaptation required prohibit comparison of items across countries?
• How feasible are the measures to use, including ease or difficulty of adaptation, training, and data collection? What is the anticipated budget for countries interested in taking these measures to scale?
• How are the data anticipated to be used? How do the quality and child development/learning measures work together, and who are the key stakeholders for each measure? What capacity is needed to adopt the measures at scale over time within countries?
This paper will share the results of the initial field trials, including a full scale pilot effort anticipated to be completed in Tanzania in late 2015.

Author

• Abbie Raikes