SurveyCTO Training for Early-Grade Assessments

AFLEARN and DataFirst are pleased to offer a practical, hands-on training in SurveyCTO focused specifically on Early Grade Assessments. This course will be held at the University of Cape Town, 19 to 23 January 2026.

Why This Course?

Accurate measurement of early grade reading and numeracy is essential for improving foundational learning. To generate high-quality data, tools should be accurate, consistent across provinces and projects, and technically robust. As the education sector increasingly adopts digital data collection, there is a strong need to strengthen capacity in SurveyCTO-both for general survey design and for administering timed Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRA)and Early Grade Mathematics Assessments (EGMA).

This course responds to that need by:

Building strong foundational skills in SurveyCTOform design and secure data workflows.
Strengthening national and provincial capacity to deliver standardised EGRA/EGMA assessments using timed SurveyCTOmodules.
Supporting DBE’s goal of harmonised tools that produce comparable results across provinces, programmes, and implementing partners.
Enhancing competency across government, NGOs, technical assistance teams, and private fieldwork firms to implement assessments at scale.
Ensuring participants are confident using grid-timed and flash-timed plug-ins for early grade reading and numeracy tasks.

With three days of core SurveyCTO training, followed by two days dedicated to EGRA/EGMA, this course equips participants with the practical skills needed to design, implement, and manage high-quality digital assessments.

Who is hosting this course?

This training is hosted by the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the African Foundational Learning Data Hub (AFLEARN) at DataFirst and the SALDRU Survey & Data Hub

Course Overview

Day 1: Foundations of Digital Data Collection

Survey workflow
Orientation to SurveyCTOforms (type, name, label)
Building and managing choice lists
Survey encryption and secure data handling

Day 2: Form Logic & Structure

Using hints effectively
Required fields
Constraints & constraint messages
Relevance (skip logic)
Groups & repeat groups
Designing multi-lingual surveys

Day 3: Advanced Features

Referencing repeated fields
Choice filters
Randomisation
Preloading data
Using server datasets

Day 4: EGRA/EGMA in SurveyCTO

Field plug-ins for assessment modules
Using Timed-Flash for reading tasks
Timed Grid Choice for numeracy tasks

Day 5: Advanced EGRA/EGMA

Preloading test items (FUNS-style EGRA)
Efficient data output and structuring
Advanced EGMA task design

Course Facilitators – Introduction to core SurveyCTO

Tim Brophy is Senior Manager: Operations and Data of the SALDRU Survey and Data Hub which implements SALDRU’s survey and data collection projects and provides data management and production support to various SALDRU projects. Tim has experience with working in data management, data quality, panel studies and the intersection of socioeconomic data with graphical information systems (GIS). He joined SALDRU in 2005 initially working on the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS). Tim went on to work on several other SALDRU studies including the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) where he worked between 2008 and 2019; finishing his tenure at NIDS as the Data Manager and Principal Data Analyst. After NIDS, he then worked on the Land Restitution Evaluation Study (LRES), also a SALDRU project, initially as Data Manager and then as Senior Manager: Operations and Data.

Georgi Borros is a Research Manager at SALDRU's Survey and Data Hub, where she oversees the Basic Package of Support (BPS) Tracer Study and contributes to survey methodology development. Prior to SALDRU, Georgi developed and managed data pipelines for nationally representative surveys, including the Research ICT Africa After Access Surveys and UNICEF's Out of Pocket Expenditure Study. She has also led the statistical validation of South Africa’s new Early Childhood Development quality measurement tool (QASS) and provided advisory support on the evaluation design for the first Results-Based Financing programme in the sector. Passionate about research methodology, Georgi is currently pursuing a PhD in survey sampling at UCT's Department of Statistical Sciences. Her research focuses on optimising stratified sampling in multivariate contexts using computational methods. Georgi also holds a Master's in Economics from UCT.

Course Facilitators – EGRA/EGMA in SurveyCTO

Jan Schenk is an expert in digital survey design, data systems, and education measurement, specialising in SurveyCTO-based assessment tools and automated data workflows. Over the past decade, he has supported national and provincial government, NGOs, and research organisations to design, deploy, and manage high-quality data collection systems, with a strong focus on foundational learning and ECD measurement. Jan has led the technical development of large-scale survey and assessment platforms, including multi-province EGRA-style instruments, multilingual tools, repeat-group structures, preloaded datasets, and secure backend architectures. His work spans the full data lifecycle from form design and field protocols to cleaning scripts, quality control, and dashboard automation. He has worked with DBE, UNICEF, the Education Outcomes Fund, DataDrive2030, and multiple evaluation partners. Jan currently works as an independent consultant based in Cape Town.

Asanda Lobelo is a Research Associate at the Department of Basic Education (DBE) working in the Research Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation (RCME) Directorate. She recently completed her Master of Commerce degree specialising in Applied Economics at the University of Cape Town. Her interests are in applied development economics, with a focus on the education and labour market sectors. Her dissertation research focused on the use of the newly established early grade benchmarks for local African languages in the classroom. It specifically investigated how those benchmarks can be used to support teachers in responding earlier to learning gaps in foundational literacy. This was done by evaluating the impact of a light-touch intervention designed to improve teacher assessment practices when using an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) type tool through a small pilot study. Prior to working at the DBE, she worked at J-PAL Africa where she supported various impact evaluations of mostly education programs and interventions using randomized controlled trials.

Who is this course for?

This training is designed for:

DBE officials (national and provincial)
NECT
Technical assistance partners (e.g., BCL)
NGOs working in foundational learning
Researchers working in foundational learning
Private-sector fieldwork and research companies

What will I learn?

Participants will gain the ability to:

Build secure, well-structured SurveyCTO forms
Implement complex logic, multilingual surveys, and randomisation
Use preloaded datasets and server connections
Build standardised, timed EGRA and EGMA instruments

A key goal of the course is to strengthen the community of professionals working with foundational learning data in South Africa. To provide an opportunity to connect with fellow participants, an off-campus social event will be held on the Wednesday evening.

Course fee

The course is free for participants from the government, university and NGO sectors. Participants from the private sector will be charged a course fee of R10,000. Travel and accommodation expenses are not included and must be self-funded. Morning and afternoon teas, lunch and an off-campus social event will be provided.

How do I apply?

Complete the application form by 3 December 2025.
Spaces are limited, and successful applicants will be notified.
For questions, contact Alison Siljeur at datafirst@uct.ac.za.