Tools for your toolbox: Collecting data for cost-effectiveness with the Brookings Childhood Cost Calculator

This blog features an independent review of a tool we found particularly useful. We’re sharing it in the hope that you’ll find it just as valuable for your own work.

Exploring new tools for cost-effectiveness in EdTech

As part of our ongoing work in cost-effectiveness analysis within our portfolio of research at EdTech Hub, we also look to other cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) approaches relevant to EdTech. In this blog, we take a closer look at one of the key tools that has emerged recently from the work of the Brookings Institute on cost-effectiveness. 

Brookings has been working on their Childhood Cost Calculator (C3) tool for some time, the tool itself and accompanying publication, and it has now been publicly released for broader use in the sector.

Here we are reviewing this resource, which we think will be valuable for furthering cost-effectiveness analysis within early childhood interventions, and review its functionality and relevance for EdTech specifically.

Jump to section

👉🏾 Tool overview
👉🏾 Who is the tool for?
👉🏾What is the purpose of the tool?
👉🏾What does this tool add to the sector?

Tool overview

The Brookings C3 tool, launched in the summer of 2023, is an online tool used to capture and report cost data for a range of interventions targeting children and youth. The tool is not limited to educational interventions but can be used for a wide range of interventions with this target audience (for example, interventions related to health, nutrition, WASH, social protection, etc.). The tool is available online for free and allows anybody to log in via an email address. 

While there is often high demand for cost data, equally often, there is limited capacity to engage with the process of collecting and reporting cost data in a rigorous way. The C3 tool is designed to allow individuals and organisations to streamline and optimise the accuracy of cost data collection and reporting processes even in scenarios where there is little capacity to engage.

The C3 tool entails filling in a series of forms relating to programme information and various costs (see Figure 1 below). 

Figure 1. Image showing a screenshot of the Brookings C3 tool (The list of forms that comprise the tool). Credit: Brookings.

The C3 tool also provides standardised and detailed descriptions for each cost category and resource type (see Figures 2 and 3 below) to standardise how costs are captured and reported by those using the tool.

Figure 2. Image showing a screenshot of the Brookings C3 tool (Cost classifications and categories used by the tool, as shown in Adamba et al., 2023). Credit: Brookings.

Figure 3. Image showing a screenshot of the Brookings C3 tool (Different resource types used by the tool (as shown in Adamba et al., 2023). Credit: Brookings.

Who is the tool for?

The C3 tool is intended for those designing and managing programmes focused on children and youth and for use by a single individual within an intervention. It is not designed for collaborative use (data is stored locally before being uploaded to a server and is only accessible through an individual login). The tool guide states that the individual using the tool should be familiar with the  programme’s, finance and management processes. Where an individual with an understanding of all these aspects of the programme does not exist, Brookings recommends a collaborative team approach to obtain relevant information so that the form can be completed thoroughly at the end of the process. 

While requiring an individual to use the tool can streamline the process, all the relevant information must be available beforehand to complete the forms (not just concerning the areas of knowledge outlined above, but also have data for all the costs of the intervention such as the unit costs of items, which resource type each item belongs to, and whether the items were purchased directly by the programme). 

If multiple partners are working on an intervention involving multiple cost data sources, ensuring an individual can complete the forms could be a lengthy and complex process.  Additionally, the tool is likely to be most easily accessible when used by an individual familiar with the nature of a programme’s costing (and cost organisation) and its implementation. Non-experts may not find the tool immediately intuitive to use. It is likely that pre-existing cost data will require significant re-categorisation to match the tool’s categories and resources. This can be a complex process, demanding a significant understanding of the inner workings of an intervention and experience of cost-capture processes. Programmes will probably need someone with expertise in costing to ensure appropriate use of the tool. 

What is the purpose of the tool?

The tool’s main purpose is to provide costing data needed to facilitate wider cost analyses such as cost-effectiveness analysis. The tool itself does not engage with the outcomes of an intervention, and therefore as a standalone, it cannot do cost-based analyses that require additional data.

The tool’s purpose also varies depending on when it is used during a project’s lifecycle. The tool can be used across the lifecycle of an intervention (from the planning stage to post-implementation) to present cost calculations allowing for cost analyses at any point. So for example, using the tool prior to an intervention can simulate cost estimates to help determine the affordability of an intervention within a given budget. Using the tool retrospectively, post-implementation can provide details about cost allocations to specific user groups, resources, or other disaggregating factors during the cycle of an intervention. 

What does this tool add to the sector?

Some of the most significant benefits of this tool are:

💻 Ease of use and accessibility make the tool available and usable to a wider audience, ultimately leading to more cost data being captured and reported.

📊 Steers users to a consistent approach to cost data capture, which ultimately leads to costs that can be compared meaningfully.

🔎 The breadth of categories in early childhood development that have been included allows for richer cross-sector analysis, minimising assumptions about what types of interventions are most effective.

Ease of use

Our testing with the tool has shown that it is relatively low effort to engage with and complete. Combined with being accessible to anyone online, it is a helpful step first to ensuring that costing exercises can be completed to a high standard even in scenarios where there is little budget for costing work, and as a step towards ensuring that costing work is done rigorously and systematically across a wider range of studies than it is currently (often different organisations will have their own approach and criteria for what qualifies as a cost). It also removes the need for organisations to develop their own approach to capturing costs, which often requires significant investment and outlay. There is a caveat that the data and knowledge necessary to complete the tool may be a high barrier to entry, however, this would potentially be a barrier regardless of the tool. 

Consistent and comparable data

Having a systematic and consistent way of measuring costs across the education sector (and other child-focused sectors) means that the cost data between interventions is directly comparable. This is important as it can provide helpful reference points when making decisions relating to the cost of an intervention, particularly regarding making accurate cost estimates for budgeting purposes and assessing appropriate levels of expenditure compared to similar interventions.

Cross-sector analysis

Furthermore, the comparability of costs across a range of sectors can provide the basis for cross-sector analyses that focus on the effectiveness of different modalities of intervention and their ability to reach certain user groups in a way that is non-sector specific. This will provide useful findings and a different perspective by integrating different data points into cost-based analyses which at the moment primarily remain sector-specific. The breadth of approach also minimises assumptions around what categories of early childhood development may be more cost-effective, beyond EdTech, and even education.

Relevance to EdTech

The Brookings C3 tool is not specific to EdTech — indeed not even specific to the education sector, and came out of a broader approach to Early Childhood Development. However, this breadth of applicability makes the tool very flexible and even future-proof regarding the dynamic and changing uses of technology within education. In regards to cost, the tool is an important resource for researchers to capture the costs of education interventions, with or without technology. Since it is important to compare tech and non-tech interventions, an EdTech-specific approach to costing would not be expected. However, ensuring that features around incorporating embedded and capital costs of technology are important for accurately capturing the true cost of technology in education. 

In addition to the cost capture aspect of this tool, which is explicitly its primary aim, the importance of measuring effectiveness must be considered. In this case, we would advocate for an emphasis on standardised and comparable education-focused metrics, namely Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling. Clearly, the scope of the C3 tool is broader and includes health and nutritional outcomes as well, however, the value of more education-specific measures for education outcomes should be underscored. Changes measured by standard deviation show the relative change within a programme but can be harder to compare to other educational interventions.

The Brookings Childhood Cost Calculator is a valuable tool for capturing cost and should be taken up more broadly within EdTech and Education. As the sector converges around more standardised approaches to cost-effectiveness analysis, EdTech Hub encourages such approaches which allow greater comparative analysis within the sector, and form a key part of the evidence base for what works in EdTech, Education and Early Childhood Development more broadly.

💛 Enjoyed this read? We’ve got more insights for you! Dive into our next read on How to capture EdTech costs for smarter decisions