Tool 2.4: Checklist

Review and Strengthen the ECE Section(s) of the Education Sector Analysis (ESA) Report

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How to Use this Checklist

This checklist’s questions and items helps you outline and/or review your draft of the ECE chapter(s) of your Education Sector Analysis (ESA) to identify and ensure key information is included and is comprehensive that should ideally be synthesized in the Education Sector Analysis (ESA) report.

The checklist’s categories and items are organized according to the building blocks of the Build to Last conceptual framework. Items have been adapted and built upon from MOOC Module 3 pages 3-46.

Respond “Yes,” “Somewhat,” or “No” to each item.  Based on your responses, you will receive suggestions on how to strengthen ECE components of your ESA.

While filling the checklist, you may see how the ECE content is reflected/addressed in Kyrgyzstan’s 2018 ESA Report. When viewing the report sections indicated, ECE-specific content is highlighted in yellow.

National context and enabling environment for ECE

Are the following included and analyzed in detail in the ECE chapter(s) of the ESA?
1. The main political and administrative features of the country

2. The state and evolution of socioeconomic and demographic indicators likely to affect pre-primary education, including:

2.1 The pre-primary population
2.2 Economic activity and trends, growth
2.3 Adult literacy and employment
3. Specific vulnerabilities (natural and/or human-made hazards, social conflicts) that have the potential to disrupt education which have been described, including how they may affect the pre-primary subsector in particular
4. The education system, and the pre-primary subsector in particular, response to linguistic, ethnic, cultural or social diversity
5. The rate that the general population has been growing, or migrating, recently which consider related challenges for the development of schooling, including pre-primary education
6. The proportion of the population living in urban settings, if this includes how the population is distributed across the national territory, how education services are organized and affected, in particular pre-primary services
7. The proportion of the population living in poverty, including groups which are particularly affected
8. The health and developmental status of pre-primary age children, including global health, nutrition and child development indicators, disaggregated by sex, age and vulnerability characteristics (i.e. children with disabilities, from linguistic or ethnic minority groups, internally displaced children, immigrants, or refugee children)
9. The history and background of pre-primary education provision in the country, including a clear description of the pre-primary service areas, delivery approaches (public, private and community-based) and program boundaries (e.g. alignment with daycare centers). Depending on context, this could include how the education sector is featured in a broader ECD multisectoral context.

10. The political and institutional environment for (pre-primary) education, including:

10.1 The policies and strategies and regulatory frameworks including details on:

10.1.1 Whether pre-primary is part of compulsory education and if so, from what age
10.1.2 Whether pre-primary education is provided free of charge, and if so, from what age and for which populations (including extent to which free services are mandated for various vulnerable pre-primary age children such as ethnic and linguistic groups, children with disabilities, displaced, immigrant and/or refugee children)
10.2 The legal framework, sector coordination and monitoring and quality assurance mechanisms at the national level

10.3 The pre-primary governing structures at central and decentralized levels including details on

10.3.1 Whether there is a recognized/legitimate ministerial anchor in charge of promoting pre-primary education
10.3.2 Whether the roles and responsibilities of the ECE leadership clearly defined and represented in the organizational structure of the ministerial anchor
10.3.3 Whether ECE is overseen by a separate directorate or hosted within general education or primary education
11. The status of demand for pre-primary education services, including amongst vulnerable groups (i.e. persons with disabilities, ethnic and linguistic minorities, immigrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons)
12. The implications on special support needed to promote vulnerable populations’ participation in education, particularly pre-primary

Planning and budgeting

  • 1
    On access and equity
  • 2
    On cost and financing
  • 3
    Complete
Are the following details to understand what the pre-primary supply and demand landscape looks like included and analyzed in detail in the ECE chapter(s) in the ESA?
1. The absolute number of children enrolled in pre-primary education.
2. The gross and net enrolment ratios and related growth rates/trends of children per year of pre-primary education (e.g. 5- year olds), disaggregated by district/province, geographical zone, gender and other vulnerability characteristics (linguistic and ethnic minority groups, disability, household wealth, refugee, immigrant, or displaced person, etc.).
3. The trends/growth rates in number of pre-primary service providers and driving factors of pre-primary availability (i.e. public or private provision).
4. The total number of pre-primary schools/centres and classrooms in the country, per service provider type, location, etc.
5. Analytic narrative on the reasons behind successful retention of pupils or the drop-out of pupils.
6. The total number of pre-school aged children who are not attending school, or who are out of school, including a supply/demand analysis.
7. Analytic narrative on the extent to which vulnerable sub-groups have equal opportunities to access and benefit from early childhood education including the below.
8. How many children (of the right age) attend and participate in pre-primary education, including children with disabilities and children with other vulnerability characteristics (linguistic and ethnic minority groups, disability, household wealth, refugee, immigrant, or displaced person, etc.).

9. How does (lack of) access to ECE differ for the below sub-groups of children (disaggregated data and trend analysis are key to include)?

9.1 Gender: Do girls and boys have equitable opportunities to access pre-primary education? If not, what are gendered barriers to equitable pre-primary education?
9.2 (Dis)ability status: Do children with a disability (e.g. hearing impairment) have equitable access to pre-primary education? What are barriers?
9.3 Other vulnerability characteristics such as Ethnic/Minority groups or other children affected by conflict or crises (internally displaced persons, immigrants, refugees, etc.): Do children with these characteristics have access to pre-primary education?
9.4 Geography/Area of residence: To what extent do children from remote or rural areas have access to pre-primary education as compared to children in urban centers? Example: Do children from all sub-national regions have equitable chances of accessing pre-primary education?
9.5 Household composition: Do (single or double) orphans have equitable access to pre-primary education?
9.6 Household income/wealth: Do children from lower socioeconomic classes have equitable access to pre-primary education as children from wealthy households?
9.7 Parents’ level of education: Do children from parents with no/limited education have equitable access to pre-primary education as children from educated parents?
9.8 Aggregate: which sub-group of children with a combined vulnerability profile (e.g. girls from poor families in rural areas) are most at risk and why?
9.9 How does the quality (learning outcomes, infrastructure, materials) differ for these sub-groups of children? Is data disaggregated and findings Are any inequities related to the pre-primary workforce described and analysed?

10. Which interventions, programmes or other initiatives have been taken to address existing inequities? What are their results and what can be improved going forward?

10.1 Mechanisms to promote equitable pre-primary access available.
10.2 Mechanisms to increase family engagement to promote access.

Quality of pre-primary education

What is known about the quality of pre-primary education, in terms of learning outcomes, curriculum availability and implementation, ECE workforce and professional development, ECE quality assurance and accountability mechanisms, and family and community engagement?

To respond to the above in the narrative, are following items considered and analyzed?

  • 1
    Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Availability and Implementation
  • 2
    ECE Workforce and Professional Development
  • 3
    ECE Quality Assurance and Accountability Mechanisms
  • 4
    Family and Community Engagement
  • 5
    Complete
What is known about the quality of pre-primary education, in terms of:
1.1 Learning outcomes: An analysis of the immediate or later impact of pre-primary education on the early learning and holistic development of young children, including transition rates to primary or basic education, young children’s school readiness competencies including early literacy and numeracy skills and physical and socioemotional development.
1.2 Learning environment: Availability and quality of pre-primary infrastructure, furniture and teaching and learning materials (including indoor and outdoor play materials) as well as infrastructural guidelines or requirements.

1.3 Data: The availability, quality and uptake of pre-primary education data, statistics and evidence for planning.

1.3.1 Analyze here the extent to which pre-primary data is available from EMIS, research studies, monitoring data, sectoral data, and multisectoral efforts.
1.3.2 It is important to understand the extent to which data on structural and process quality is available (structural quality may be defined as group size, child-to-teacher ratio, or teachers’ qualifications and process quality refers to children’s peer to peer and peer to teacher interactions, availability and use of materials, etc.).
1.4 Standards: Early Learning and/or Development Standards: The availability, quality, implementation and monitoring.

1.5 Curriculum: availability, implementation and monitoring of a pre-primary curriculum across different service providers in the country:

1.5.1 Information on the type of curriculum (play-based or competency-based), the structure/content, the intended age group and the materials developed to support the implementation of the curriculum, official or mandatory curriculum framework for pre-primary education.
1.5.2 Curriculum used by different types of service providers (public, private, NGOs, etc.) in practice to ensure even levels of quality – including the percentage of pre-primary settings use the official curriculum.
1.5.3 Information on the curriculum in terms of inclusivity, gender-responsiveness, cultural relevance, age-appropriateness alignment with early learning development standards (if they exist), continuity with the primary curriculum (to favor smooth transition to primary school).
1.5.4 Availability of the curriculum and related teaching and learning materials in the national language and mother tongue or minority languages.
1.5.5 Accompaniment of the curriculum by appropriate and stimulating learning and play materials and availability of these materials in schools and classrooms, by service provider type.
1.5.6 Whether or not the curriculum play-based and provides opportunities for all forms of guided exploration and play.
1.5.7 If teachers or service providers have been trained to implement the curriculum and monitor and assess students’ learning outcomes based on curriculum implementation.
1.5.8 Information on the implementation strategy and process to date, including classroom observations on the pedagogy used.
1.5.9 Analytic narrative on factors influencing/impeding the full implementation of the curriculum.

Conclusions and recommendations

In the overall ESA report, this is a summary of the strengths and weaknesses across the country’s education sector, including the key challenges of the pre-primary sub-sector and opportunities for subsector enhancement. Here, policy priorities are identified. These priorities will inform the development of the strategies and activities of the Education Sector Plan and its operational plan.

You may use the other sections of this checklist to identify strategies and areas for enhancement of the subsector to highlight in this section(s) of the ESA report, as well as ways the subsector strategies contribute to system-wide priorities and goals.

The following are questions may be analyzed to adequately frame your ECE narrative for this section of the ESA report:

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2.4 Checklist – Review and Strengthen ESA (word)
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2.4 Checklist – Review and Strengthen ESA (pdf)
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2.4 Annex 1 – Examples of structure of ESA reports
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2.4 Annex 2 – Kyrgyzstan’s 2018 ESA report
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2.4 Checklist - Review and Strengthen ESA (French)
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2.4 Checklist - Review and Strengthen ESA (Spanish)
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