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::Education For All Global Monitoring Report: Strong
Foundations - Early Childhood Care and Education
Date: 26/10/2006
Summary:
The Education For All Global Monitoring Report is commissioned
by UNESCO and prepared and published annually by an independent
team of experts. It includes its regular assessment of where the
world stands on its commitment to provide universal basic education
to all by 2015. This year’s report focuses on early childhood
care and education and finds it remains the forgotten link in
the education chain in most developing regions.
Latin America and the Caribbean leads the developing world in
the provision of pre-school education, according to the annual
Education for All Global Monitoring Report, published by UNESCO
today. However, despite well-documented benefits for child development
and well-being, the Report finds that this area remains the forgotten
link in the education chain in many regions, and that half the
world’s countries have no early childhood care and education
policy for children under age three.
Early childhood care and education, the first of six 'Education
for All' goals the world is committed to achieving by 2015, is
the theme of this edition of the Report. The study also includes
an assessment of progress towards the other five objectives, showing
a marked acceleration in primary school enrolments, for both boys
and girls, and an increase in aid to education, offset in several
countries by a decline in national education spending.
“It is no coincidence that the first 'Education for All'
goal focuses on the youngest and most vulnerable children,”
said Koichïro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO. “Improving
their well-being at the earliest age must be an integral and systematic
component of education and poverty reduction policies. High-level
political endorsement is essential to getting early childhood
care and education on the agenda.”
“Early childhood programmes make for strong foundations
and pay high dividends,” says Nicholas Burnett, director
of the Report. “Each year in the developing world, over
10 million children die before age five of mostly preventable
diseases. Programmes that combine nutrition, immunisation, health,
hygiene, care and education can change this. They are also a determining
contributor to better achievement in school. Despite this, the
children who stand most to benefit from such programmes are those
least likely to have access to them.”
Participation in pre-school ranges from 62 per cent in Latin
America and the Caribbean, as against only 35 per cent in the
developing countries of East Asia and the Pacific, 32 per cent
in South and West Asia to 16 per cent in the Arab States and 12
per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Pre-school is universal in most
Western European countries. Enrolments fell sharply in transition
countries after the break up of the Soviet Union but are now recovering.
The report, Strong foundations: early childhood care and education,
shows that demand for early education and care is expanding rapidly,
spurred by higher numbers of women on the labour market and more
single-parent households. In 1975, on average, one child in 10
was enrolled in pre-primary institutions; by 2004 coverage had
increased to about one child in three.
The best evidence on the benefits of early learning programmes
comes from industrial countries. The US High/Scope Perry Preschool
Programme conducted in the 1960s targeted low-income African-American
children assessed to be at high risk of school failure. Participants
and a control group were tracked several times until age 40. Results
showed clearly that participation led to increased IQ at age 5,
higher rates of graduation from secondary school and higher earnings,
with overall benefits exceeding costs at a ratio of 17:1. Research
in fields ranging from neurobiology to psychology amply confirms
how a child’s physical and psychological development is
shaped by experiences during the first years of life.
According to another study cited in the Report, the higher an
African country’s pre-primary enrolment ratio, the lower
its repetition rate and the higher its primary school completion
rate. Economic analyses in Egypt found a benefit/cost ratio of
3:1, with higher benefits if the early childhood programmes are
targeted to children most at risk
However, financing for early childhood programmes is a low priority
in most countries: less than 10 per cent of total public education
expenditure was allocated to pre-primary education in 65 of the
79 countries with 2004 data available; over half allocated less
than 5 per cent.
In a field characterised in many countries by strong reliance
on private funding, the Report warns that public policy must set
quality standards and regulations to safeguard against inequalities.
The Report states that targeting resources to the most disadvantaged
children should be the first step of a broader national early
childhood care and education policy for all children. India, for
example, concentrates on urban slums, tribal areas and remote
rural regions. Home- and community-based programmes in countries
as diverse as Ireland, Colombia and Kenya are successfully reaching
disadvantaged families, offering guidance to parents and care
arrangements for young children.
The Report also emphasises the importance of quality carers in
early childhood programmes. Yet in developing countries, those
working with young children typically receive less training than
their primary school counterparts.
Even in industrialised countries, highly trained educators often
work alongside untrained child care workers, many of them part-time
or volunteers. Some countries like the UK are moving to close
the gap between education and care workers by introducing a national
minimum wage in early childhood care and education.
The Report also presents its annual assessment of progress towards
the other Education for All goals. It shows:
• Continued progress towards universal primary education
(UPE), especially in regions farthest from the goals. Enrolments
in primary education increased sharply between 1999 and 2004 in
sub-Saharan Africa (27%) and South and West Asia (19%) though
only by 6% in the Arab States.
• A steady decrease in the number of primary school aged
children who are out of school: according to government data their
number has dropped by 21 million since 1999 to 77 million in 2004.
More than three-quarters live in Sub-Saharan Africa, and South
and West Asia. Four countries alone account for about 23 million
children out of school (Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Ethiopia).
• About two-thirds of the 181 countries with 2004 data have
achieved gender parity in primary education. Disparities at the
expense of girls remain significant in many countries, often those
with the lowest enrolment ratios (including Afghanistan, Central
African Republic, Chad, Pakistan, the Niger and Yemen). Only one-third
of countries have achieved gender parity at the secondary level.
• Primary school completion remains a major challenge: in
Latin America and the Caribbean, less than 83% of children enrolled
in grade one reach the last grade; in the majority of Sub- Saharan
African countries, fewer than two-thirds of pupils reach the last
grade.
• Adult literacy rates remain below 70% in the Arab States,
South and West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, one in
five adults remains unable to read or write.
The Report makes a number of recommendations to address these
problems, most notably:
• Hiring more teachers – sub-Saharan Africa needs
between 2.4 million to 4 million more teachers to achieve universal
primary education – shorter pre-service training for teachers,
more on-the-job practice and incentives to work in remote and
rural areas.
• Making school more affordable for children by abolishing
school fees, providing financial incentives to reduce household
dependence on child labour and special assistance for children
affected by HIV/AIDS.
Many governments are not spending enough on basic education.
Although public education spending increased between 1999 and
2004 in most countries, spending as a percentage of GNP fell in
41 cases, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean, and
in South and West Asia.
Aid to basic education in low-income countries increased from
US$1.8 billion to US$3.4 billion between 2000 and 2004 (from US$2.6
to $4.4 billion across all developing countries). Donor pledges
will likely increase this to US$5.4 billion by 2010. But this
is still well short of the $11 billion per year needed now to
achieve EFA in low-income countries, says the Report.
The Report includes an Education for All Development Index (EDI),
a composite of indicators on UPE, gender, quality and literacy.
It reveals that out of 125 countries with data available, only
47 - mostly in Europe, but also including six in Latin America
and the Caribbean and four in Central Asia - have achieved the
six Education for All goals, or are close to doing so.
Twenty rank in the lowest EDI category. Two-thirds are in Sub-Saharan
Africa but this category also includes several Arab States and
countries in South and East Asia.
Organisation: UNESCO Resource type: UN report
Category: Community
policy
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