Children’s readiness for Grade R before, during and after Covid-19

Image source: DataDrive2030

Dave Strugnell, Junita Henry, and Claire Gomes | September 2023

This report aims to investigate the influence that the Covid-19 pandemic had on preschool outcomes, as measured by the Early Learning Measures (ELOM) Tool in South Africa. The report focuses on domain-specific ELOM scores as defined by the Early Learning Measure Tool. It is important to understand the influence of the pandemic on the ELOM scores, for the purposes of future initiatives and future-proofing of the early childhood development (ECD) sector. 

The data used in this study comes from various sources. It was collated and sourced by the DataDrive2030 team. The years that the studies were conducted range from 2016 to 2022. The studies include a 2016 Validation study; a 2018 Early Learning Programme Outcomes (ELPO) study; a 2019 Grade R study; the 2021 Thrive by Five Index; a 2022 Roots and Shoots study; and 2019 to 2022 data from The Learning Initiative (TLI). All data aside from the TLI data were collated in one primary dataset that was used for modelling purposes.