Data for Impact: Shaping Early Childhood Development in South Africa

For too long, crucial decisions about early childhood development (ECD) in South Africa lacked authoritative data, limiting effective policy-making and strategic investment. The Thrive by Five (TB5) Index, launched in 2021, emerged to fill this critical gap. Now the largest nationally representative survey of preschool child development in South Africa, the Index has directly informed government strategies, including the National Planning Commission’s 2024 2024 ECD Advisory Document and the Department of Basic Education’s 2030 Strategy for ECD Programmes.

Building on our team members' prior work on the 2021 Index and the ECD Census, Genesis's Primary Data Intelligence (PDI) unit was contracted by DataDrive2030 to lead data collection for the 2024 Index. This extensive wave surveyed children aged 50-59 months (approximately 4-5 years old) across all nine provinces of South Africa, including both enrolled and non-enrolled children in Early Learning Programmes (ELPs). Our role encompassed sampling design, developing six data collection tools, facilitating comprehensive training for 110 enumerators, and establishing robust fieldwork and data protocols.

Transparency and rigorous quality control were central to our approach. We implemented a bespoke data backend system integrating SurveyCTO, Airtable, and Slack for real-time tracking, automated quality control alerts, and full visibility for the client through interactive dashboards and daily reports. This ensured precision and efficiency, significantly reducing data cleaning time. We completed 5,258 Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) assessments across 1,442 Early Learning Programmes (ELPs), with an additional 282 ELOMs for non-enrolled children.

This project powerfully demonstrated Genesis's commitment to high-impact, socially meaningful data collection. Our technical excellence, combined with our collaborative approach to capacity-building, strengthened national expertise in ECD data. This success has reinforced our position as a leader in large-scale ECD and education data collection.