Early beginnings for bridging the Quality Inequality Gap: Junko Miyahara

1. Early beginnings for bridging the Quality Inequality Gap: Junko Miyahara At Regional Seminar on Quality Inequality Quandary Lahore, Pakistan 4-5 April, 2012

2. Contents Basic rationale for ECCD Overview of ECCD in the Asia-Pacific Region ECCD as equaliser: Experiences from the region So what now? : looking forward…

3. Children are born learning.

4. Critical periods for brain development

5. The early years represent the most efficient time for optimal returns to occur.

6. ECCD Trends in the Asia-Pacific- gaps and opportunities

7. Percentage of Children under Five Suffering from Stunting by Region, 2009 Source: WHO data cited in UNICEF, 2009

8. Stunting, poverty, and ECE Source: ECCE Progress Note 2009

9. GER in pre-primary education increasing

10. Source: MICS, Thailand

11. Pre-school or pre-primary can be a part of ECCD but is not all ECCD

14. ECCE experience and survival to last grade of primary education, Select Countries Source: Statistical Annex, UIS, 2011.

15. ECCE is not considered a basic right by governments. (EFA A-P Report, March 2011)Public spending on pre-primary education is negligible

16. Government spending is negligible.

17. Resources Public educational expenditure in pre-primary as % of total educational expenditure Source: ARNEC Country Profile – GMR 2008

18. Thailand (Source: Murphy, K. (2011) The Life Skills Development Foundation: Promoting ECCD Equity and Access in Remote Villages of Northern Thailand, draft paper submitted to ARNEC) …., and are often working with limited resources that are divided between competing infrastructure projects such as roads, water systems, among others. As one TAO official admitted, “day care centres are long-term commitments as they require on-going support for salaries, food and supplies, and that kind of money is difficult to fit into the TAO budget.”Furthermore, TAOs are typically located in urban or peri-urban centres, far from the more isolated, rural communities. As a result, remote areas of the country are often lagging behind their urban neighbours in the establishment of programs and centres to support child development.

19. Access - equity Provincial ECE NER 3-6 Year Olds, Indonesia, 2006 Source: Indonesia Country policy report, 2008

20. What does quality ECCD mean? in association with equity and relevance, expected outcomes

21. School Readiness ProgrammeCambodia Ministry of Education, Youth and Sportwith support by UNICEF-Sida, Kampuchean Action for Primary Education (KAPE), World Education and Save the Children Norway

22. Program goal and objectives: • The SRP aims to provide a bridge between a child’s state of knowledge at the time of entry into primary school and the Grade 1 curriculum. • The program seeks to reduce the high rates of primary school repetition and drop out and increase student achievement. • The SRP is a readiness course that takes place during the first two months of a child’s formal education, in order to compensate for the lack of formal pre-schooling. Target population: • Children entering Grade 1 who has no experience in early learning program (the initial pilot phase in 2004/05)

23. The programme: • Modification of curricular content to focus more on skills that children will need to succeed in school rather than the academic content. • A 14-day teacher training program to orient new teachers to the program and child-friendly teaching methodologies in classrooms • Physical upgrades of classrooms (where possible) and enhancement of the availability of learning aids for children • A regular monitoring to support teachers in their implementation, • Formalized student assessment for monitoring and reporting purposes

24. Impact on Teachers’ Performance

25. Difference in language scores by topical areas between experimental group and control group experiment group control group

26. As result of the evaluation of the pilot, it was streamlined into the on-going Child Friendly School Initiative, adopted by the Ministry as policy in February 2008 and incorporated in the National ECCD Policy (2010) – mainstreamed into policy!

27. Alternative modes of ECE provisionMongolia Preschool Enrollment Rate: 76% • 59% kindergarten, • 17% alternative programs Rich children are 6 times more likely to attend ECE than poor Remote west has the lowest ECE participation by far

28. Ger-kindergarten: community based ECE service • Ger- kindergarten – Ger is easy to construct and easy to move - familiar to children & families. All supplies and materials for ECE center inside • Inclusive management - all stakeholders are involved in the process of implementation • Curriculum - alternative curriculum – includes 72 days/180 hours program implemented; • Training - 5 days training module developed and implemented; mobile supervisors (on horseback) provide support • Parenting Education - on early childhood development and child care • Toolkits for parents in video format • DVD programs – series with guidance for parents on children • Developmental milestones from zero to 6 years in simple language

29. ECE enrollment in Western Region

30. Mongolia - Lessons learned Need policy frameworks and budget provision to sustain the progress Investing needs innovation and ideas – not necessarily much more expensive, but cannot expect to use the exact same resources and standards. Ger-based care givers receive same salaries as more qualified care providers in urban centers. Independent learning is essential for herder parents – DVDs and videos are most effective (solar generated power in common in remote areas) Essential to rely on local experts and community networks. Community identifies potential care givers to receive training – don’t try to parachute someone into the community or select care givers from afar.

31. Learning goals and outcomes • What kind of world do you want to live in? What is our hope for our young children?

32. Countries determine National ELDS Domains – in East Asia and the Pacific

33. Createaninstrumentbasedonthe ELDS in each country ELDS Malaysia ELDS China ELDS Fiji Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales ELDS Vanuatu ELDS Philippines ELDS Laos ELDS Vietnam ELDS Mongolia ELDS Cambodia ELDS Thailand

34. EAP-ECDS structure (latest) 9 (8 separate; 1 incorporated in another item) 1. Approaches to Learning 22 2. Cognitive Development 10 3. Cultural Knowledge and Participation 15 4. Language and Emergent Literacy 9 (8 separate; 1 incorporated in another item) 5. Motor Development 9 6. Health, Hygiene and Safety 16 7. Socio-Emotional Development 90 Total

35. Pitfalls for equating quality with outcomes (Myers, 2006, UNESCO-UNICEF, 2011) Be aware that many factors and multiple environments influence outcomes and it is hard to know how much to attribute to programmes and how much to family and community environments. It is hard to sort out whether self-selection to programs may account for achievement more than the excellence of the educational process. It is difficult to know to what extent the early and positive effects of an ECCE program may fade because of intervening conditions. Cautions for placing all the assessment in future. A child lives in the present and should be entitled to positive and enjoyable experiences in the immediate environments in which she or he learns and develops. Outcome is important part of quality but also need to focus on the structures and processes that characterise services and programmes is also important.

36. Systems Matter (Kagan (2011) at Singapore Child Care Seminar)

37. Systems Matter (Kagan (2011) at Singapore Child Care Seminar)

38. III. Looking forward…

39. Concluding summary Quality is dynamic, complex and contextual. The existing literature on quality measurement of ECCD is primary from the high-income nations, especially from the West (e.g. North America, Europe). The scope must be broadened considerably to conceptualize quality in “global” contexts. Balance between diversity and coherence - consultations among multiple stakeholders are critical to come to a certain level of understanding and consensus towards the vision to be achieved and measurable indicators. Voices from community, parents and children should be reflected. Caution for not equating quality with outcomes (esp. narrowly defined outcomes). It’s because many attributes affect outcomes (at different points in time), and also the whole experience is important for children in EC period Need to look at quality at system level.

40. Summary – Priority actions in the region Working with parents, families and community as they are the primary educarers for young children Finding ways to proving access to good quality ECCD among children in disadvantaged circumstances and to leveraging resources Establishing or strengthening institutional mechanisms among stakeholders across sectors and at all levels that facilitate coordination; and Strengthening monitoring and evaluation at all levels and for improving further course of actions

41. How should we go about it? …..in order to ensure all young children to enjoy their early childhood years, to learn meaningfully, and to develop foundational skills, knowledge and disposition for further learning in the subsequent years in life.

42. Thank you! For more information, visit www.arnec.net

43. What should be the focus of a global education goal in the post-2015 agenda? The 1st Regional Consultation: Post-2015 Global Agenda - MDG/EFA 9 November 2011, Singapore ‘Learning’, as opposed to education (which has a formal tone) Learning can catch people’s imagination and interest. Caution that ‘Learning’ tends to be equated with test scores Focus on reducing disparity between groups within individual countries. Cautions as to how we approach disparity and measurement. Focus on the quality of services—outcomes measured by quality rather than numbers. The challenge is how to develop or articulate holistic educational development goals that consider psychosocial aspects of development as well.

44. Cont’d The importance of the brain development window for children birth to age 2. Need helping all stakeholders understand this importance. How to get the ministers involved to acknowledge and claim the need of cross-sectoral collaboration? Include indicators that would support the underlying capacity to learn; indicators in the home setting. Early childhood provides a platform for considering transitions and allowing for a seamless curriculum from preschool through the early grades. MoE is always seen providing formal education, so if ECD is put into the MoE, then there is a need to re-orient their mindset. Universal and free compulsory ECD should be provided for children birth to age 5 or 8, and the annual budget should be in proportion to the number of children at each age/stage. Public sector is provided an umbrella of government support and the private sector can provide a wealth of knowledge and other resources.

45. Cont’d Parent education. How to measure parent readiness, how to develop readiness indicators? How to reframe the current practice so that parent education is not just lectures about what parents should do, but how to support the learning process of parents. Targeting the youngest and most marginalized in terms of malnutrition. Focusing on ‘target populations’ is one way to work, and can be effective to certain degrees. But cautioned that we cannot be sure that just because the nutritional goals are met, then development will occur. This is a survival goal rather than a development goal. We need to find ways to do both/and, so that nutrition and development happen simultaneously and the process is holistic. The importance of considering children affected by disasters and how to facilitate their learning.

46. Cont’d The MDGs need to be localized MDGs, not globalized MDGs, as this was important in terms of political commitment. What began as linear thinking about global development has since 2000 developed into a new way of thinking, and with it the awareness that future goals need to be radically different. Plan for going forward: 1. Develop a systematic way to evaluate the development of young children (countries can define their own) 2. Apply it 3. Use it to evaluate the whole process and to develop further.