In April 2022, the multi-sector partnership, Thrive by Five, led by the Department of Education and DataDrive2030, released their wide-ranging 2021 Thrive by Five Index, the largest open-source data set in the country of preschool child development according to early learning, physical growth and social-emotional wellbeing.
Some of the findings included:
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43% of four-to-five-year-old children are on track in both growth and early learning, while 53% face barriers to thriving, followed by 4% who are not on track for either;
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On average, 45.7% of children are on track in terms of gross motor development, fine motor coordination, emergent numeracy and mathematics, cognition and executive function, and emergent literacy and language, while 26.3% are falling behind, with a further 28% falling further behind; and,
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In terms of social relations with peers and adults, 72.5% of surveyed children achieved an expected score, opposed to 27.5% who did not. 66.6% of children were found to be emotionally ready for school, while 33.4% did not achieve the expected score for this indicator.
“Poor data collection and mismanagement have real-life consequences. The failure of US banks to collect accurate credit data on borrowers, outdated or incomplete data used in risk models, accurate data on the true value and risk of these assets not collected or made available, with regulators flying blind when trying to scope the financial terrain for any risks were major contributing factors to the 2008 financial crisis, of which the consequences were felt for many years thereafter,” comments Stefan Gerber, co-founder at Tregter.
However, data collection failures are also counterweighted by data collection successes. An example of this is the data from ThriveByFive Index is a game changer for the education and child health sectors, as it provides concrete information that can be used at scale.
“Data sets which include these rich qualitative data insights are critical for the operations of the government and the NGO environment. Without hard data, evidence-based decisions cannot be made, and effective resource allocation cannot be rolled out. We see this in local projects and widely scaled programmes”, added Jessica Ronaasen, National Lead of the Do More Foundation.
However, most importantly, using reliable data can improve the living conditions of South Africans over time. Ronaasen qualifies that “data equips decision-makers to identify trends and anticipate future challenges, enabling targeted responses to areas of need. For example, the ThriveByFive data revealed that 9% of children surveyed in the Eastern Cape are short for their age due to chronic malnutrition. Insights like these empower government, NGOs and businesses to channel resources effectively, to address specific bottlenecks and challenges for areas that are identified by the data.”
Further to this, polling data can assist in better understanding an individual community’s unique needs and circumstances in order to provide tailored solutions.
“Digital platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram can serve as a revolutionary vehicle for social impact organisations to gather more information from the public and improve outcomes. Especially in more rural and poorer areas, where technology use is largely limited to an entry-level smartphone. AI-driven chatbots capable of managing dynamic human-like conversations in several languages can be hosted on these digital platforms in gathering more granular information from community members, especially because it has the capabilities of guiding the conversation to seek out the needed information, as well as analyse other media such as images or voice notes. AI automation can take this data and assist in analytics while also allowing for scalability in the future,” Gerber described.
With accurate data, organisations gain more credibility and can build partnerships more easily to ensure the highest level of impact and efficiency. This includes leveraging programmatic and operational data alongside national index data to provide a comprehensive understanding of needs, measure progress effectively, and align interventions with broader strategic goals, ensuring that resources are allocated where they are most impactful.
Gerber concludes that “data is a tool for success. Without it, other functions of any organization or even society for that matter, cannot operate seamlessly. In a data-driven age, it is vital for humanity to continue working effortlessly to scale up data collection if we are to see positive radical change in the lives of society’s most vulnerable.”