Early Childhood Internationally

The education of young children is an important concept throughout the world.  Unfortunately, the international early childhood community faces many of the same issues that we do.  These issues include poverty, equity, and excellence of care and education for children and young families.  Knowing that these issues affect children around the world has changed me both personally and professionally. 

            One personal consequence of this knowledge for me is that I no longer believe that I am doing my duty or fulfilling my role as early childhood educator if I do little to nothing to help children around the world.  For many years, I thought that if I was the best teacher possible to the children that I had I was making a difference.  While this is true, it is not the full story.  As we have learned in our course all children, deserve the best experience possible.  As an educator, I should be finding ways to stand up for children not just in my classroom but also around the world and early childhood education itself.  I am not sure how I can carry out this mission but I am committed to trying to do something about it.

            A professional consequence of this knowledge is that I am more aware of how important the concept of equity and excellence is.  Many children and families simply do not have access to quality programs.  Professionally, I feel that I should be advocating for ways to improve and increase access to early childhood programs for children around the world. 

            Finally, as we have studied the concepts of quality I have been asking questions of my program and center about where our responsibility to quality ends.  My program is a wonderful program, which has earned many wonderful accolades.  However, our concern for quality stops at our front door.  My questions to administration includes questions like should we not be concerned about the programs next door, down the block, and even across the state?  It is not the programs I am concerned about it is the children and families that they serve.  Unfortunately, my state is not a state known for wonderful early childhood programs.  Although this is improving, we still have a long way to go.  I see it as my and my program’s responsibility to strive to improve the quality rating for all children.  How we would do, this is up for discussion but at least the question has been raised.

            There is an old quote that says, “It takes a village to raise a child;” well listening to our presidential candidates we know our economy is a global economy.  Therefore, I believe that our children are global children. What affects one group affects others, if not all.  I believe that the early childhood field should work together more cohesively around the world.  I believe that information should be shared more frequently and with more concern to all parts of the world.  We should focus our efforts as a field on improving access to quality education for all children, not just the select few. 

UNESCO and Professinal Development

 

 

                UNESCO early childhood education website offers information about programs designed to improve the care and education practices around the world.  UNESCO believes that the years of early childhood lay the foundation for all learning and development.  UNESCO advocates for early childcare and education programs that attend to health, nutrition, security and learning in the hopes to provide for children’s holistic development because they realize that all areas of development are critical to the life and well-being of the child.  UNESCO organized the first World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education, which ended in the adoption of the global action agenda for early childhood named the Moscow Framework for action and Cooperation: Harnessing the Wealth of Nations. 

                UNESCO believes that early childhood is more than a preparatory stage assisting the child’s transition to formal schooling.  UNESCO recognizes that early childhood also takes place in the contexts of social development, gender equity and poverty reduction.  They aim to support early childhood policy development that builds a solid foundation for a child’s lifelong learning. 

                UNESCO follows the 1990 Jomtien Declaration for Education of All that states that learning begins at birth.  Participating countries committed themselves to expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.  Governments were encouraged by UNESCO to expand equitable access to quality early childhood services, which has not been steadily implemented in the United States.  UNESCO believes that a policy of universalization with targeting for specific groups can minimize inequity where governments aim for universal access.  I believe that UNESCO would be supportive of implementation of universal childcare based on rigid standards.

                UNESCO aims to enhance and broaden the quality of care and education for all children.  UNESCO believes that high quality care, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds provides motivation, confidence and academic development.  UNESCO advocates for learning materials and programs to be culturally and developmentally appropriate. UNESCO also advocates for the adequate training and development for early childhood professionals so that they can be the professionals they need to be.  UNESCO also recognizes that active involvement from parents and communities and relevant play and learning materials ensure that early childhood services remain relevant to the needs of the children.

                UNESCO also advocates for the coordination of early childhood services. UNESCO recognizes that the early childhood field is comprised of many different sectors and that sometimes there is not enough coordination or cooperation between services.  UNESCO advises that these sectors could be brought together into one ministry, department, or use coordination mechanisms, which can help to target and blend services from different organizations. 

                UNESCO believes that children and the early childhood years are critically important to the life of the developing person.  UNESCO advocates for quality improvement, access and equity, and coordination or higher levels of cooperation between early childhood sectors.

Global Children's Initiative

The Global Children’s Initiative



The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University was founded in 2006. In order to discuss and concern children around the world The Center on the Developing Child developed the Global Children’s Initiative with three broad objectives:

1. To reframe public discourse about the early childhood period

2. To support innovative, multidisciplinary research and demonstration projects

3. To build leadership capacity in child development research and policy

With these objectives in mind The Global Children’s Initiative focus on early childhood development by assessing quality in early childhood programs, piloting assessments to measure child development and expand effective interventions to improve preschool around the world. They also work to ensure child mental health by increasing their efforts to provide services. The Global Children’s Initiative also works to find ways to help children in natural disasters.