The Learning Programme Quality Assessment (LPQA) (v2) Technical Manual is the evidence base behind DataDrive2030’s strengthened tool for assessing the quality of early learning programmes for children aged 3–5 years.
It explains how LPQA (v2) was developed, how it works, and what the psychometric results show.
Built for use in the South African context, LPQA (v2) assesses programme quality across five domains:
The manual also sets out the key improvement from LPQA (v1) to LPQA (v2):
A more objective scoring structure, with each item broken into clear sub-questions and scored numerically to improve consistency and reliability at scale.
Drawing on data from 1,433 early learning programmes across all nine provinces, the manual presents evidence of excellent overall reliability and strong construct validity across the five domains.
For organisations, researchers, and system actors working to understand and improve early learning quality, this manual offers the technical foundation for using LPQA (v2) with confidence.
Title: Learning Programme Quality Assessment (LPQA) (v2) Technical Manual
Author(s): Developed on behalf of DataDrive2030 by: Linda Biersteker, Andrew Dawes, Caitlin Buenk, Jurgen Becker, Elizabeth Girdwood, and Caylee Cook. This second edition builds upon the first edition published in 2021 by Linda Biersteker, Colin Tredoux, Frankie Mattes and Andrew Dawes.
Published: June 2025
Explore more related resources or search through all our resources on our resources page.
