Adapting and scaling early learning outcomes assessments in the West and Central African Region

Access to quality early childhood education (ECE) is essential for acquiring foundational skills such as literary, numeracy and socio-emotional learning. It is a predictor of school readiness and educational achievement. Measuring children's development and learning at the start of school is crucial for decision-making on the necessary interventions to help them learn and to improve the quality of ECE programming. One challenge in West and Central Africa is the lack of localized, scalable tools that measure all skills for all children to inform quality improvements and provide data for meaningful comparisons across countries and regions.

This research will adapt and implement two internationally developed ECE assessment tools that have been widely recognized for their robustness and comprehensiveness. However, their effectiveness in diverse cultural and socioeconomic contexts necessitates further adaptation to ensure relevance and accuracy. Both have been piloted across West and Central Africa at different levels. This research seeks to adapt and integrate the tools together and into other existing learning assessment processes to strengthen their use so that they provide a holistic picture of early learning outcomes, early learning environments and school readiness for children aged 3-7 years.

The objective is an inclusive early learning approach that engages pre-school and early primary teachers, school managers, parents and policymakers in the assessment of early learning. The expected outcome is improved quality of inclusive early learning environments, foundational skills and school readiness and transitions in Burundi, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia and Senegal.

This project is funded under the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Knowledge and Innovation Exchange, a joint endeavour between the GPE and IDRC to connect expertise, innovation and knowledge to help low- and middle-income countries build stronger education systems and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal on education.