In the six years (1966-1972) the Bernard Van Leer Foundation funded the Project for Early Childhood Education (PECE) in Jamaica, with a view, inter alia, to: (i) upgrading the teaching competence of Basic School teachers through in-service training, (ii) developing, experimentally, instructional materials for use in the programme. Their concern was that no hindrances to a child's development occur as a result of con­tinued presence in an impoverished environ­ment, and furthermore, that where children are forced for socio-economic reasons to live in such a context, an attempt at compen­sation should be made by specially enriching their school environment. The main object of assessment in this con­text was to determine just how far the enriched curriculum provided for these Jamaican children was meeting their needs for adequate compensatory education. As a result one area of PECE research concentrated on obtaining measures of the achievement levels in initial and final pupil performance.