Measurement & Metrics

Overview

We develop and share high-quality tools, indicators and data systems that help governments, practitioners and researchers measure children’s learning and wellbeing—with a focus on making evidence usable and scalable.

  • Children’s learning and development are deeply shaped by contexts of poverty, crisis, displacement and inequality. Without reliable measurement systems that capture holistic outcomes—not just test scores—we cannot fully understand, track or improve the gaps in children’s lives. Robust data and assessment frameworks are therefore essential for decision-makers who aim to build effective and equitable education systems.

    • We co-design context-relevant, psychometrically-sound instruments and metrics with local and national partners, ensuring cultural validity and operational scalability.

    • We support the development of data infrastructure, monitoring systems and analytic capacity so that evidence is collected, interpreted and used for real-time program and policy decisions.

    • We open-source our tools, datasets and learning resources—so that our public-goods approach strengthens measurement capacity globally and accelerates shared learning.

  • Our work crosses three interrelated domains:

    1. Foundations of measurement: Building instruments and frameworks to assess children’s cognitive, socio-emotional, physical and educational development in diverse, often crisis-affected settings.

    2. Systems for data use: Partnering with ministries, NGOs and multilateral agencies to embed measurement into national/sub-national systems—so results inform resource allocation, policy design and program improvement.

    3. Scale and sustainability: Working with stakeholders to ensure that measurement efforts are not one-off, but integrated into long-term systems that adapt, iterate and expand.

Two people sit on stools playing a digital board game with a holographic display, one man points at the screen while the woman looks on, both appear engaged in the game.

Measurement & Metrics Projects

Project CARDS
Engage
Engage

The Engage project develops and validates tools to measure how adults support children’s learning through play across homes, schools, and diverse global contexts.

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UNHCR Humanitarian Education Accelerator [2016-2022]</span>
UNHCR Humanitarian Education Accelerator [2016-2022]

Global TIES for Children mentored UNHCR’s Humanitarian Education Accelerator teams on measurement, monitoring, evaluation, and learning as they scaled education innovations.

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Strengthening Holistic Learning Measurement Systems in Colombia and Peru [2022-2024]</span>
Strengthening Holistic Learning Measurement Systems in Colombia and Peru [2022-2024]

Global TIES for Children and Universidad de los Andes supported education stakeholders in Colombia and Peru to improve coherent measurement of holistic learning, SEL, teacher skills, and classroom practices.

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Featured News & Publications

Resources
Engage team members participate in the project’s final Comunity of Practice convening
Engage team members participate in the project’s final Comunity of Practice convening

From November 3-6, 2025, Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Sharon Kim represented Global TIES for Children at the final Engage Community of Practice convening, organized by EDC and hosted at the LEGO Foundation headquarters in Billund, Denmark.

Over three days, partners from across the Engage portfolio shared evidence and lessons on strengthening student engagement in early childhood and primary education across diverse contexts.

The sessions focused on:
Insights from implementing and adapting the Engage tools
Trends emerging across countries and developmental levels
How data can drive program improvement and system-level change

This convening wasn’t a “show-and-tell.” It was hands-on, reflective, and honest about what it takes to embed child-centered, playful learning approaches into teaching and learning systems—and sustain them.

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Early Childhood Parenting Support – Call Quality Instrument (ECPS-CQI)
Early Childhood Parenting Support – Call Quality Instrument (ECPS-CQI)

The ECPS-CQI instrument was developed in English by Anaga Ramachandranm, Dalia Al Ogaily, Kate Schwartz, Joyce Rafla and Hirokazu Yoshikawa and used to measure the quality of interactions during a phone call with a parent or caregiver. The instrument assesses the domains of relationship with family, responsiveness to family strength, needs, and culture, facilitation of caregiver-child interaction, and active listening. The ECPS-CQI tool has shown promising evidence for reliability and validity, and with caution, it can be used for intended purposes with similar samples/contexts.

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Global TIES and RTI launch the first of several Engage tools
Global TIES and RTI launch the first of several Engage tools

NYU-TIES and RTI began launching the new Engage Tool to measure support for engagement of children in their learning, starting with the tools that focus on settings for primary school age children. Early childhood tools, whose development was led by NYU-TIES, are forthcoming. The Engage tools will be launched during a webinar on January 21st, 2025, that focuses on findings from a recent study by the World Bank showing how Engage is highly predictive of learning outcomes. Other panelists include practitioners who have been using the tool in Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Uganda. 

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Fortalecer los sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación del aprendizaje holístico en contextos de emergencia y crisis prolongada: Colombia y Perú - Informe diagnóstico resumido para Perú
Fortalecer los sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación del aprendizaje holístico en contextos de emergencia y crisis prolongada: Colombia y Perú - Informe diagnóstico resumido para Perú
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HOLAS Assessment Bank
HOLAS Assessment Bank

The Holistic Learning Assessment System (HOLAS) Bank is a curated inventory of educational tools/assessments and relevant monitoring and evaluation (M&E) resources designed for use and/or implemented in Colombia and Peru.

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Gobee learning agenda: Our top six learnings from developing an edtech tool for emergency settings
Gobee learning agenda: Our top six learnings from developing an edtech tool for emergency settings

Gobee, a prototype assessment tool for emergency settings, set out to make it easier for teachers and facilitators to measure children’s learning progress. Following the initial stages of development, War Child and NYU Global TIES share their learnings and publish the codes on an open-source platform.

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