Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor James Heckman has shown that investing in Early Childhood Development (ECD) offers the highest return on investment for a country—both economically and socially. Early investment leads to long-term benefits for communities, including improved education, better public health, reduced crime and violence, a stronger economy, and greater social cohesion. In South Africa, this is especially significant for fostering equality and long-term social stability.
A positive early development trajectory helps children succeed in formal schooling, stay in high school, and step confidently into further education and the world of work.
At Knysna Education Trust, we help ECD entrepreneurs establish and manage high-quality ECD centres. We support principals in running compliant, well-managed facilities that create employment for ECD practitioners. Our training programmes build skills across the ECD workforce—from principals and teachers to assistants and cooks—while we also help equip classrooms with age-appropriate resources that support holistic child development.
Our core goal is to ensure that all children in the Knysna area are ready for school by age six, with a strong focus on reaching children from disadvantaged backgrounds. We do this by increasing access to safe, quality ECD facilities and playgroups for children aged 0–6.
A Theory of Change maps out the steps we believe are necessary to achieve our long-term goals — starting from the current situation, identifying what needs to change, and outlining how our work contributes to that change.
At KET, our Theory of Change guides everything we do. It helps us focus our efforts, track progress, and ensure we are making a real difference in the lives of young children. It also helps our partners and supporters understand not just what we do, but why it matters—and how it fits into a bigger picture of social transformation
We aim to ensure that:
Monitoring and evaluation of programmes can be challenging for all non-profit organisations and, with KET, it is no different. We are reliant on data for the reporting from ECD facilities who face various challenges on this front – one being limited access to technology and free internet.
This is why we created a simple M&E plan that complements our Theory of Change which includes minimal indicators that can be systematically and effectively monitored across a 30% sample of the facilities we support.
KET has strict monthly evaluation, monitoring, and reporting protocols which both support the improvement and expansion of operational execution and measure the impact of programmes and services implementation. The Salesforce for NPOs supports real-time onsite data capturing and programme monitoring by the KET Preschool Area Leads (PALs), thereby streamlining administration processes.
Ultimately, we measure the achievement of our aims by assessing the school readiness of the 6-year-old children participating in the facilities we support. This is done by using the Early Learning Measurement (ELOM) assessment. ELOM tools effectively assess various developmental outcomes in young children and offer insights into the quality of early learning environments, both at home and in programme settings. Developed in South Africa, these tools are easy to use and have undergone extensive testing with thousands of children to ensure their psychometric validity and standardisation. They are designed to accommodate diverse socio-economic backgrounds and are accessible in all 11 official languages of South Africa.
KET is a proud partner of Datadrive, the originator of the ELOM tool, training ELOM assessors in the Garden Route area in support of the ECD sector. Please visit our Principals’ and Practitioners’ Information page for updates on ELOM testing and reporting.