ECD Measure hosted this webinar on March 25 at 9:00am ET. 

The presentation slides are available in our Resources.

The interactive session provided background on defining the purpose of measurement in participants’ countries and provided guidance on considerations to make when designing or selecting tools to measure child development. We also heard from experts at the University of Cape Town and Innovation Edge about the Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM), South Africa’s national preschool child assessment tool, which can be used as a population level assessment as well as program monitoring tool.

Speakers included:

Ms. Linda Biersteker is a co-principal investigator for the development, implementation, and scaling of ELOM tools. Ms. Biersteker is a developmental psychologist adult educator with nearly 40 years of research, training and programming experience in the early childhood development sector. She has produced numerous publications and undertaken assignments for government, donor groups, academic institutions, NGOs and international agencies. She is one of South Africa’s leading Early Childhood Development specialists. Her major contributions have been to South African ECD policy, programming and curriculum, improvement in policy and ECD service delivery in Africa.

Professor Andy Dawes is a co-principal investigator for the development, implementation, and scaling of ELOM tools. Professor Dawes was trained as a clinical psychologist and has spent most of his career working in applied developmental psychology. He has a particular interest in assisting early child development and violence prevention NGOs to develop Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) capacity and undertake evidence-based programming. Professor Dawes was a co-founder of the University of Cape Town Children’s Institute, and until 2008, was the Research Director in the Child Youth and Family Development program of the Human Sciences Research Council. He has been an Associate Fellow in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford. He is currently an Associate in the Department for International Development where he works with the Young Lives cohort study of children growing up in poverty. His expertise includes the development of indicators for measuring children’s well-being and their access to rights, prevention of child maltreatment and violence to young children, and evaluations of early childhood interventions. Professor Dawes has extensive experience in translating research to policy. He has consulted with the South African government and a number of international agencies including UNICEF (Innocenti Research Centre), the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization and Save the Children.

Temi Ogunyoku Ph.D. is Head of Data Strategy at Innovation Edge, a venture philanthropy organization. She is developing and driving a strategy that aims to build the systems and teams necessary to enable the use of the ELOM tools at scale, and to optimize the use of data to drive quality enhancement in early learning programs. Temi is a seasoned research leader who has extensive experience on the ground moving projects forward (i.e., strategy development, grant writing, research & development, implementation). She has worked with governments, multinational corporations, and businesses to develop solutions that address water quality, waste management, health, and financial services challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. Temi has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis, and a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Riverside.

Abbie Raikes PhD., MPH, is an associate professor at the College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center.  Dr. Raikes’ recent work has focused on improving early childhood programs and policies in low- and middle-income countries.  Her research background also includes a strong focus on young children’s social/emotional development and leadership of the Measuring Early Learning and Quality Outcomes (MELQO) project.  Previously, Abbie contributed to early childhood policy development in several countries as a program specialist for UNESCO in Paris and as a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.