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 ECD Measure’s Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory (BEQI) 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 (BEQI) 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.
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 ECD Measure on a regular basis to discuss pre-primary data and measurement issues in Liberia.
Key Indicators from Liberia
| Poverty headcount ratio at $2.15 a day (2017 PPP) (% of population) | 28% |
| GDP per capita (current US$) | $676 |
| School enrollment, preprimary (% gross) | 128% |
| Prevalence of stunting, height for age (% of children under 5) | 30% |
| Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000 live births) | 76 |
Data from the World Bank
Country Team Members
| Name | Title | Organization |
| Cecelia Cassell | Dean | Teachers College, University of Liberia |
| Gabriel Nelson | ECE Lead | ADARA Research and Management Consultancy |
| Jestina Sartee | Director, Early Childhood Education | Ministry of Education |
| Jebbeh Gray | Chairperson, Instructor | Early Childhood Education, Teachers College, University of Liberia |
| Alphonso Wright | Child Development Practitioner | University of Liberia |
| Madia Herring Mansah | Executive Director | Curriculum Development and Textbooks Research, Ministry of Education |
| Emmanuel Yarkpazua | Education Officer | USAID Liberia |
This website is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the Office of Education, Bureau for Africa, U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of contract No. 7200AA19C00080, subcontract CATALYZE-Edu-CR-2023-0352. The contents of this website are developed by the ECD Measure group hosted at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.