Program to Improve Private Early Education (PIPE)
Developing a Comprehensive Tool to Assess Pre-School Quality at Affordable Private Schools in India
FSG developed the “Scoring Tool for Assessing Readiness at School” to measure the quality of education in preschool classrooms by leveraging the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale 3 (ECERS 3) and International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) tools.
Introduction to Scoring Tool for Assessing Readiness at School
Quality is often judged on student learning outcomes
This approach tends to discount key input factors that are important contributors to improved learning outcomes. Key reasons for poor outcomes include:
- Teaching by rote
- Classroom environment not adapted for conceptual learning
- Unclear buy-in from schools (administrators and teachers) and parents on the value of activity/ play based approach
It is important to understand progress on key input factors in conjunction with child learning outcomes
It takes time for schools and key stakeholders to realize the value of conceptual learning. Key reasons include:
- Teachers take time to adapt (e.g. changing the classroom setup)
- Administrators / Principal need to champion the approach (e.g. pushing teachers to implement)
- Parents need to align with the new pedagogy (e.g. not pushing for rote learning)
FSG has developed a simple tool to track classroom and stakeholder transformation, which is:
- Suitable to the Indian affordable private school (APS) context
- Comprehensive (covers child assessments and tracks change in input factors)
- Rigorous (leverages existing established tools such as ECERS R, IDELA)
- Efficient and scalable (takes <4 hours for assessing quality at a school)
- Difficult to teach to the test (i.e. responses can’t be rehearsed)
- Stakeholder agnostic (not only for solution providers of activity-based learning)
- Easy to use and doesn’t require specialized training
To get a copy of the tool, please:
Click here for English (with instructions and supporting materials)
Click here for Telugu
Click here for Hindi
Click here for Kannada
Click here for Tamil
Get an overview of the approach used to develop the tool here.
