Getting to Know Your International Contacts - Part 3

Still haven’t heard anything from my international contacts as of yet, I decided to do the alternative blog assignment this week. In doing so, I visited UNESCO’s Early Childhood Care and Education webpage. UNESCO advocates for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programs that attend to health, nutrition, security and learning and which provide for children’s holistic development. It organized the first World Conference on ECCE in September 2010, which culminated in the adoption of a global action agenda for ECCE called Moscow Framework for Action and Cooperation: Harnessing the Wealth of Nations (UNESCO, 2012).

UNESCO focuses on High quality childcare, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness (UNESCO, 2012). Because there are no universally agreed criteria for quantifying ECCE quality, the useful factors to consider include pedagogy materials, personnel training, service setting and parental education and involvement. Learning materials should be quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate and focus on child-centered interaction.

Where government resources are limited, the last year of pre primary education is frequently placed in a formal school setting or there may be efforts to lower the entry age. This is particularly daunting in developing countries, where early childhood may be overshadowed by other pressing priorities, such as universal primary education.  Governments, if they deal with the issue at all, often approach early childhood from the context of national social policy or health services. They must also use complementary financing measures to ensure equity of access for poor and disadvantaged children, as a pure market approach to increasing the level of early childhood provision has been shown to favor the privileged, who can afford the service.

Of all the websites I have visited in the past, this website has to be the most interesting of them all. It gives a good summary of background information on the most important matters, such as Quality and Investment and Financing. Reading such websites as this one, furthers gives me the push I need to succeed in this field of early childhood education.

Resource:

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2012) Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/