Azim Premji University has launched an open access Early Learner Assessment (ELA) tool for assessing the level of development in children between 3 to 5 years of age. ELA is a free, open-access handbook for Early Childhood Education (ECE) professionals — teachers, researchers, organizations working with children, as well as parents. This academically and statistically standardized tool is a collective effort of the Sangareddy Early Childhood Education Initiative and Azim Premji University.
The ELA can be used to assess children attending any early childhood programme like anganwadi, balwadi, nursery school, kindergarten or any other preschool education centre. As a part of the assessment process, the children need to either engage in a conversation with the assessor or in an activity with the provided materials as per the instructions of the assessor. The process will take an hour’s time and could be spread across two days.
Physical, cognitive, language, social, emotional, and creative and aesthetic expression are the various domains across which the ELA will assess the child comprehensively. The ELA is developed specifically based on an Indian context of early childhood education. The ELA is widely field tested and is based on extensively analysed data. The evidence-based tool has been developed in a such a way that it can be easily administered in an anganwadi. It is culturally appropriate as it is based on the standards of development benchmarked specifically for Indian children. Also, the items, language, materials, pictures, and examples used are contextualised for the anganwadi setting.
This performance-based tool can be used to collect both cross-sectional and longitudinal data as it captures the current level of development of the children, and can also track their progression to higher levels of development over a period of time within the pre-school period of 3 to 5 years. The handbook is expected to benefit researchers who are involved in the study of the development of young children. Assessing childrens developmental and learning outcomes will allow to understand their current level of competencies and the quality of the preschool programme. This will help in designing and modifying the preschool environment to help children achieve their developmental potential.
