Scaling Early Childhood Development – what to read this month (February 2024)

In this monthly blog – also available as a newsletter – we will highlight recent advances in research, materials, tools, and practices related to how to design, monitor, and evaluate scalable early childhood development (ECD) programmes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) worldwide. The inspiration for this new series came from Ugo Gentilini’s excellent Weekly Social Protection Links. 

Scaling Early Childhood Development – what to read this month is curated by Bet Caeyers (Lead Editor, Chr. Michelsen Institute), Erika Williams (Editor, Oxford Policy Management) and Meghan Taylor (Editor, Oxford Policy Management).

Let’s kick off this new series with some recent innovations in mHealth. Poulsen et al. have created an innovative toolkit to overcome barriers associated with mHealth co-design in LMICs. Co-design – involving stakeholders – is being increasingly used to design health innovations in LMICs. However, there can be barriers affecting people’s ability to engage equitably, such as resources and capacity, gender disparities, competing priorities among key stakeholders, cultural sensitivity, and restrictive fiscal space. Poulsen et al. recommend select methods related to culture, language and technology to overcome these barriers and strengthen ‘mobile phones for development’ research and practice (see pages 9-12 for an illustrative application of the toolkit on the free mobile parenting app Thrive by Five, which is now used in several LMICs).

More on the topic of parenting programmes, Buccini et al. have produced a fascinating comparative case study analysis on scaling up Criança Feliz, a home-visit-based parenting programme for child development in Brazil – now one of the largest ECD programmes worldwide. Key recommendations for addressing barriers in scaling up the programme include investing in promoting equitable access, integrating the programme into existing early child development systems, improving the sustainability of training, supervision, and monitoring, and creating flexible financing flows to allow for greater sustainability and return on investment (see page 15 for a quick summary of recommendations and lessons learned).

Does parenting always work as intended? Not quite. In a new working paper, Aurino and Wolf explore the unintended effects of an SMS-nudge parenting intervention in Ghana. While short, light-touch SMS-based interventions are seen as a ‘smart buy’ for improving educational outcomes at scale, the reality is more nuanced. The research found that nudges decreased parental engagement and school attendance of children with parents who had no schooling, most likely through a reduction in self-efficacy and educational aspirations and an increase in pro-boy bias. Receiving nudges was often interpreted by participants as a signal that they were not supporting their children enough. This paper is a wake-up call for those organisations using similar educational messages in other low-literacy settings. The recommendation? Considering and accommodating heterogeneous parental responses in programme design or scale-up is key to avoiding potentially harmful consequences.

Parenting programmes are not the only ones experiencing unintended effects. A new systematic review of nutrition interventions focuses on the double burden of malnutrition in LMICs, highlighting potentially harmful unintended effects of food-based or supplement-based interventions on maternal or child overweight. This paper makes a plea for consistent reporting on both undernutrition and overnutrition outcomes when discussing nutrition intervention impacts.

Moving to Jamaica, Kinkead-Clark’s research on system quality in early childhood care and education, assesses ECCE system’s structure, funding mechanisms, legislation and strategic priorities. It highlights the persistent barriers of insufficient policy frameworks and financial resources, urging a shift towards sustainable financial strategies, increased compensation for educators, and broader access to high-quality early childhood care and education programmes. This narrative signals the necessity of navigating and dismantling systemic obstacles within early childhood care and education programmes, championing holistic and resilient solutions to enhance early learning environments, particularly in resource-constrained settings. 

Let’s digest fresh food for thought in the ECD measurement debate. Promising news for those aiming to enhance ECD monitoring efforts at scale in challenging resource-constrained environments. In a new paper, Dormal, Raikes and McCoy provide step-by-step guidance to make existing early care and education quality assessment tools – which currently tend to be complex, time-consuming and costly to train and administer for routine monitoring at scale – more efficient for use in low and middle-income countries. The paper shows that shorter versions of the open-source Measuring Early Learning Environments (MELE) tool – an instrument recently developed by the Measuring Early Learning Quality & Outcomes (MELQO) team – retain the original tool’s early care and education quality measurement capacity. See pages 11-12 for a breakdown of how item response theory identified the most informative items to be prioritised. 

Abbie Raikes – founder of ECD measure – has been busy! In another new publication, the author makes an inspirational and convincing plea to recognise the role measurement plays in leveraging change in early childhood care and education. Shifting the focus from how to develop the most psychometrically valid measures to how data is being used to improve early childhood systems, and by whom, Raikes outlines useful steps towards building country systems and global support for the effective use of early childhood care and education data to help inform where and how to invest. 

Excitingly, the long-awaited findings from the first Thrive by Five survey in South Africa are out, using the Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) tool to assess whether South African children are on track for early learning. The result? More than half are not. It is the first in a planned series of nationally and provincially representative surveys of the development of children enrolled in preschool programmes. See Table 3 on page 11 for a list of all Thrive by Five indicators used in the study. Watch this space, as two further surveys will be undertaken before 2030 to establish progress towards SDG 4.2. 

There are some new findings on gender to share too. Rey-Guerra, Yousafzai and Dearing use the Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) from UNICEF’s Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS) to explore gender similarities and differences in 3- and 4-year-old children’s early childhood development in 71 LMICs. In the one-half of LMICs where gender differences exist, girls are more likely than boys to be developmentally on track (see Figure 1 below), especially in the socio-emotional domain and in countries with greater gender equality.

Turning to the dynamics of early childhood education donor collaboration and coordination, representatives of agencies that funded and managed the Early Learning Partnership (ELP) Systems Research programme – the UK FCDO and the World Bank – take stock of recent global developments in research, policy and financing by donors for early childhood education. In this reflective piece, Hinton et al. express concern that donor finance and government spending on early childhood education remains low, despite a rapidly expanding body of research demonstrating the importance of quality early learning. The discourse introduces the ‘wheel of impact’ framework as a strategic tool to enhance donor finance, advocating for a recalibration of funding approaches to bridge the existing chasm.

Finally, we shift our lens to the refugee crisis. This policy brief examines early childhood education provisions for Rohingya children in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, uncovering a significant shortfall in access, with a mere 5-6% of refugee children attending such programmes. The Humanitarian Play Lab (HPL), developed by BRAC, stands out as a culturally sensitive, play-based educational model designed to improve psychosocial well-being and learning among children in situations of adversity. While HPL has made strides in enhancing educational outcomes and instilling a semblance of normality, it grapples with challenges in scale and political barriers. This analysis highlights the critical need for innovative approaches to early childhood education in crises and the urgency for enhanced donor and government efforts to ensure quality education for refugee children.