Liberia

Early childhood education is a priority for the Government of Liberia and USAID. Through Together for Early Childhood Evidence, early childhood education stakeholders in Liberia come together to discuss critical issues.

Established in 2019, the Liberia country team is chaired by Dr. Cecelia Cassell, Dean of the William V.S. Tubman Teachers College at the University of Liberia. In 2019, the team completed the T4ECE Diagnostic Toolkit to define the purposes of pre-primary data in Liberia and align university and ministry priorities for how data can improve ECE quality. The team identified classroom instruction as an area where ECE data can provide leverage for promoting behavior change.

Liberia’s new pre-primary curriculum and teacher planning guide emphasize child-centered and play-based approaches. However, classroom instruction is not regularly monitored, making it difficult to determine whether teachers effectively implement these approaches. As an extension of the Together for Early Childhood Evidence work, in 2020/2021, the Liberia team adapted Early Childhood Development Measure’s Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory to help Liberian researchers and policymakers understand the current state of preschool quality and make choices about improving. Read the preliminary findings.

In 2021, Together for Early Childhood Evidence launched a research project to map early childhood providers nationwide in Liberia. Researchers from the University of Liberia and the Liberian Ministry of Education designed a study to capture information about public, private, community, and faith-based Early Childhood Education centers and schools in the three pilot regions of Liberia. The team adapted and used the Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory classroom observation and teacher interview instruments to gather information on structural and process components of quality. The project marked an essential step towards mapping ECE centers and identifying gaps in the implementation of ECE programs.

Learn more about the Liberia project

Recently, the Ministry of Education and partners contextualized the International Development and Early Learning Assessment tool, a global instrument used to measure children’s learning and development, and aligned it with the Liberian Early Learning and Development Standards. In 2024, the Liberia T4ECE research team, led by the University of Liberia, will pilot the adapted International Development and Early Learning Assessment tool as a feasibility trial to ensure it is relevant and feasible to implement in the Liberian context. This feasibility trial will serve as a foundational step for the Ministry’s plans to develop a national early childhood assessment tool for Liberia. For more information, please read Working Towards Building a National Integrated ECD Data Collection and Management System in Liberia.

To learn more, please read about Together for Early Childhood Evidence in Liberia (PDF). 

Additional Information

Established in 2019, the Liberia country team is chaired by Dr. Cecelia Cassell, Dean of the William V.S. Tubman Teachers College at the University of Liberia. The team meets internally and with Early Childhood Development Measure on a regular basis to discuss pre-primary data and measurement issues in Liberia.