Early childhood education policy

I have a great interest in the Advocacy for Equitable, Accessible and Quality Pre – primary Education/Early Childhood Education for those coming from low income countries, disadvantaged backgrounds, migrants/displaced children, children with disabilities,

The early childhood education sector is not doing well according to ChildForum’s latest survey. The survey asked people involved with early childhood education services if things were currently going well or badly for their service and whether they thought the situation would improve or worsen in the next 12 months.


The survey shows that more needs to be done to help the sector create stability for its services and its workforce in order to concentrate on making sure children’s needs are met.

Compared to the few public higher education institutions in the prewar era, postwar Somalia boasts a large number of academic institutions at the tertiary level, mainly as privately owned universities. Although these community-initiated academic establishments are making tremendous contributions to the higher education sector, particularly in the absence of an effective national government, one can argue that much still remains at stake in terms of evaluation and quality assurance, key elements necessary for institutional accreditation and acceptance of credentials by other educational establishments issuing the same level of certificates. In this essay we aim to provide an overview discussion of the trends of higher education in Somalia and the way forward for newly emerged institutions, which have taken the bold initiative of changing the landscape of Somalia’s higher education.

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is globally recognized as a crucial element of education for all. Therefore, countries have intensely pursued it. After many efforts, progress towards ensuring ECCE is apparent in many countries in the world. But most of them could not either completely achieve this goal or compromised its quality due to inadequate resources, improper planning and ineffective implementation strategies; especially a vast and populous country like India. A number of initiatives have been taken by the Government of India for bringing quality in the form of policies, plans, constitutional amendments, acts, development of quality standards and curriculum framework, schemes and flagship programs like Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS); District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). In this endeavour, somewhere India has compromised with the non-negotiable quality standards for ECCE, leading the emergence of expected and unexpected issues and challenges. As a result, the country has missed the target of ensuring quality in ECCE. However, recent studies give evidence of tremendous progress towards quality reforms. Of course, there are low achievements in some aspects and in some regions, but also improvement in others which shows that ensuring quality is an attainable target. This paper intends to describe initiatives of the Government of India, assess the ground realities, identify major challenges in quality reform in ECCE and suggest possible enablers to reach out the same.

Vygotskian theory and empirical evidence suggest that children's private speech and pretend play contribute to their development of motivational processes. Given current U.S. preschool expansion, and resurgent debates over the merits of play-based vs. non-play-based approaches to early childhood education , this study conducted an experimental investigation of the relative impact of these contexts on preschoolers' private speech and mastery motivation (performance and persistence). 38 preschool children engaged in a challenging fishing activity in two experimental conditions (playful and non-playful) simulating pedagogical and motivational (intrinsic vs. extrinsic) characteristics of common preschool settings. Private speech was categorized as cognitive, motivational, metacognitive, playful or partially inter-nalized, and the emotional valence of private speech was marked as positive or negative. Results indicated that preschoolers in the playful condition displayed higher mastery motivation than preschoolers in the non-playful condition. Children in the playful condition used more frequent private speech, including more frequent cognitive, playful, and positively valenced private speech. Mastery motivation was positively correlated with playful, partially internalized, and positively valenced private speech, but negatively related to motivational private speech. Mastery motivation components (performance and persistence) related to different types of private speech. Performance related positively to metacognitive private speech and negatively to motivational private speech. Persistence related positively to playful private speech. The playful condition elicited private speech categories that were associated with higher motivation levels. Findings support the use of playful and play-based pedagogy in early childhood education, and teacher modeling of motivationally beneficial forms of private speech.

This review of research on relationship-based care practices outlines considerations for implementing these practices in Early Head Start and childcare centers serving infants and toddlers.
The report emphasizes two specific relationship based care supports – primary caregiving and continuity of care – and includes considerations at the center level, for parents and families, and for staff. The brief also discusses federal and state policies related to adopting these practices. Additionally the brief discusses how licensing, Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, and Early Head Start performance standards relate to implementing these practices.
Members of the Network of Infant/Toddler Researchers and the Quality Initiatives Research and Evaluation Consortium, jointly wrote this brief.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/resource/including-relationship-based-care-practices-infant-toddler-care-implications-practice-and-policy

Developments in neurosciences have moved into many spheres of early childhood education and policy. I am exploring the possible consequences for different populations and educational knowledge production of new narratives that are produced by the neurosciences latching onto the human capital model. How do developments in the neurosciences alter the ways in which the human capital model constructs problems, makes them intelligible and shapes interventions? On what kind of human being or child subjects these interventions are administered? My Foucauldian analysis offers a speculative examination of a series of possible narratives to critique (and destabilize) the possible effects of these policy directions.

Ensuring Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is one of the focus themes of Education for All movement conceived at the World Conference (1990) and World Education Forum (2000). Countries have keenly pursued ECCE, the first goal of Education for All and prepared well to fulfil their commitments towards this. The commitment envisages to ensure that all children, irrespective of gender and social group, get access to quality ECCE that enable them to attain necessary skills, knowledge, values and attitude. But in many countries, the progress towards Education for All goal is not enough and India is one of them. Eventually, the goal was considered to be achieved in long-term through the improved implementation of quality components of ECCE and acquiring the holistic approach to improve the functioning of ECCE programs. Realising this, the provision of 'quality ECCE' became one of the vision for education by 2030 as per the 'Incheon Declaration, Education 2030', accepted during the World Education Forum, 2015. This paper explores the synchronisation between global target for achieving quality ECCE and preparedness of India.

Almost all 3- to 6-year-olds attend preschool programmes in Hong Kong; however, early childhood education (ECE) had been relatively neglected by the Hong Kong government until 2000 when the reform of school education system was initiated. Since then, notions of ‘child-centredness’ and holistic development have been promulgated as the core values of ECE. Against this backdrop, this paper critically examines the Hong Kong ECE context, its historical development, the major obstacles to reform from both parents’ and providers’ perspectives, and the recent key policy developments in ECE. It provides a useful reference for international audiences, particularly those in Confucian-heritage cultures, in designing and implementing educational reform and change in ECE.

La crianza, en el marco del cuidado infantil, es reconocida como el primer proceso de socialización de los niños y niñas en el curso de su desarrollo, siendo ésta un elemento central para que todo niño y niña pueda alcanzar su máximo potencial. Las prácticas de la crianza se ven influenciadas por diversos factores, incluyendo aspectos demográficos, económicos, y también los cambios en las redes sociales tradicionales.
Dada la importancia que tiene este proceso en el desarrollo infantil, los países realizan diversos esfuerzos para trabajar y acompañar las crianzas y parentalidades, particularmente en los primeros años de vida.

Government Policies as Influences on Early Learning:
The Case of Hong Kong

Government policies convey both ends and means designed to steer the actions and behaviour of people, whose and which authority can be exercised, and what can be achieved in principal. In Education, therefore, they have considerable impact on shaping what happens in schools and institutions on a daily basis, and the experiences of those who study and work in those establishments.

Using the case of Hong Kong as an example, in this symposium, the three presenters offer up-to-date information on the Hong Kong early childhood contexts and illustrate how government policies may affect early learning in kindergartens. The first presenter, Dr. Maggie Koong, sets the stage by providing an overview of early childhood education and the major reform in Hong Kong in recent years, as well as discussing the conflicts and dilemma in implementing the government-recommended curriculum. The second presenter, Dr. Jessie Wong, then takes a look at the atypical Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS), which defies the usual agenda of decentralising authority through the endorsement of market force in voucher reforms, and examines its development and evolution in the policy context of Hong Kong. The third presenter, Dr. Amelia Lee, draws on data and findings from a recently completed study to scrutinise the impact of the PEVS on school choice, and how it may lead to social segregation of students. The implications of findings of the three studies and the future direction of Hong Kong early childhood policies, including the possibility of implementing free kindergarten education, are also discussed. The symposium provides a useful reference for international audiences in designing and implementing educational reform in early childhood.

Children are equipped by nature to 'learn' the real WORLD, but 'modernity' in general and education in particular trains them to learn the WORD-the description of the world! The 'real' world is alive, present, experiential, and dynamic. Through playful imitation children learn life. Modernity has fragmented the integral nature of life into several types of categories and packed them into neat compartments. Learning, working and playing are one such compartment and so is play and toy. Children are born holistic and the world around them is integrated. But our artificial categories fragment their integral experience. Childhood is the time when simultaneously several abilities, qualities and knowledge is developed. The knowledge of where they belong, what is to be done there, how etc is learned, along with developing the tools, qualities and abilities for learning? Language also is learned during this time. They learn to name the world, understand the connections and also learn to communicate their understandings of the world. Playfulness is the nature of the child and whatever they do becomes play and learning happens in the process. The child sitting on soft sofa would naturally bounce feeling the bounciness of sofa. This act is play and learning at the same time. The sofa becomes their 'toy' in this act. The notion of toy as a miniaturized product is a modern invention supported by commercial interest as well as genuine misunderstanding. Toy is the material aspect of their play and often the body itself is used as the 'toy' especially when they imitate the object itself. Imitating vehicles is a good example. Children play to re experience or re enact their real experience they are having of the world. Children's play that way is imitation as well as invention, imagination and innovation by which their sensitivity, intelligence and creativity is developed. They imitate one aspect of the experience and the rest gets invented through very innovative ways and use of props which we, the modern adults call as toys. So what does the world consists of? The world consists of 'forms', its functions, movements, processes, materiality and its qualities, human relationship and various activities and interactions. All this used to be the 'subject' of children's play in traditional communities before modernity took away their time, space and freedom. I have documented thousand of videos and images to support my studies and would present them.

Introduction Policy recommendations at all levels are often directed to those individuals (elected or appointed) or entities (legislative bodies, boards, courts, etc.) with the legal responsibility to formulate policies in line with their designated responsibilities—the policy makers. However, individual constituents and other socially embedded entities (associations, think tanks, foundations, etc.) have become important as " policy thinkers " who selectively inform and attempt to exert their influence on policy makers. The following addresses issues of DLL development and learning that may be considered by policy thinkers as they inform and influence policy makers.

This is the fourth colloquium for Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood on the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development’s International Early Learning and Child Well-being
Study, and marks the recent publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development of reports on the first round of this study. In it, the authors discuss what the results tell us, what they do not and what might come next. They conclude by supporting the need for comparative studies of early childhood education, but argue that the International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study is not the way to go.

Almost all 3-to 6-year-olds attend preschool programmes in Hong Kong; however, early childhood education (ECE) had been relatively neglected by the Hong Kong government until 2000 when the reform of school education system was initiated. Since then, notions of 'child-centredness' and holistic development have been promulgated as the core values of ECE. Against this backdrop, this paper critically examines the Hong Kong ECE context, its historical development, the major obstacles to reform from both parents' and providers' perspectives, and the recent key policy developments in ECE. It provides a useful reference for international audiences, particularly those in Confucian-heritage cultures, in designing and implementing educational reform and change in ECE.

This article examines Slovak early years teachers’ concerns with conceptions of teacher professionalism. It suggests that there is a mismatch between understandings of professionalism, policy aspirations and the attitudes of teachers to their own professionalism, and that this mismatch fuels early years teachers’ sense of agency. These tensions between conceptions of professionalism, teaching practice and actual working conditions have led to a groundup approach to self-governance within the early years teacher workforce. We analyse teachers’ discussions in an early years online forum of 12,500 members that was started and remains governed by the teachers themselves. It represents in itself a very particular attitude and response to the need to determine what it means to be a professional teacher. This analysis examines intersections of policy, quality and professionalism, and highlights considerations of power and voice, and the complexities of uncertainty and change. The article c...

In recent years ECEC has undergone dynamic change across the globe. The curricularisation and institutionalisation of ECEC launched in the global discourse of the late 1990s has recently begun to feature alongside various forms of centralised ECEC management and is gradually becoming integrated into the audit culture of education. Moreover the basic goals of ECEC are repeatedly being questioned in light of the increasing emphasis on the economic advantages and on how it relates to employability, economic growth and the removal of social inequalities. These issues are increasingly being addressed by a number of experts from various fields. ECEC is a topic that has forcefully entered the social 'field of power' (Bourdieu 1996), becoming in one way or another part of government programmes and supranational strategies.

This special issue of the Journal of Pedagogy will map out the way in which ECEC has come to occupy the central stage in discussions on education. It will attempt to show how perceptions of ECEC have changed as it has achieved its current global political legitimacy. At the same time it will highlight the consequences this change in perception is having both nationally and supranationally. It will encourage critical analysis of the effects this transformation of ECEC discourses has had in different national and cultural contexts. With the above aims in mind, this special issue of JoP will concentrate on the following questions:

What are the competing philosophies on ECEC? On which discursive levels do they exist and in which cultural and political contexts do they apply?
What are the negotiated relations between education and care, and how are they rooted in the management of education?
How is the new global ECEC discourse disrupting/reshaping traditions in specific countries or contexts?
What position does ECEC occupy in current negotiations on education policies?
Which actors are determining ECEC discourse in local and global education policies?
What is the role of the ECEC expert?  How do the expert teams who determine standpoints on ECEC policies operate?
Who are the most significant players in global ECEC policy and what language games are played?
What potential is there for alternative and marginal ECEC discourses to assert themselves?
Is there a need for activism to question the global discourse on ECEC? What forms might that take?

This article presents findings from a case study investigation of a longstanding campaign in one Australian state to change the minimum regulated staff-child ratios for babies from one staff member for every five babies (1:5) to one staff member for every four (1:4). Using interviews with early childhood professionals and politicians, and document analysis of key policy texts, an 'eventalization' (Foucault, 1991) is generated to argue multiple 'contingent events' (Mills, 2003, p. 115) at the state, national and international level, enabled ratio campaign activists to intensively promote the 1:4 ratio. Simultaneously New South Wales politicians strategically aligned themselves with national early childhood education and care policy by approving 1:4. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications for ECEC activists agitating for policy change in the future