Background
Purpose
Goals and Objectives
Links and Resources
Contact Information

Background

In March 1990, in Jomtien, Thailand participants at the World Conference on Education for All ratified the Conference Declaration, which included the statement:

"Learning begins at birth. This calls for early childhood care and initial education. These can be provided through arrangements involving families, communities or institutional programmes as appropriate." (Article 5)

A Framework for Action was developed to guide governments and their partners from civil society in creating national plans of action with targets to be met by the end of the decade, including:

"Expansion of early childhood care and development activities, including family and community interventions, especially for poor, disadvantaged and disabled children." (Article 5, para.8)

Ten years later in Dakar, Senegal at the April 2000 World Education Forum, 104 countries reported on the assessment of their progress toward achieving the goals of EFA - including two indicators for ECCD. The international community adopted the Dakar Framework of Action reaffirming the Declaration of 1990 including ECCD as the first of 6 goals:

EFA Goal # 1

"Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children."

In addition the following two related paragraphs:

"All young children must be nurtured in safe and caring environments that allow them to become healthy, alert and secure and be able to learn. The past decade has provided more evidence that good quality early childhood care and education, both in families and in more structured programmes, have a positive impact on the survival, growth, development and learning potential of children. Such programmes should be comprehensive, focusing on all of the child's needs and encompassing health, nutrition and hygiene as well as cognitive and psychosocial development. They should be provided in the child's mother tongue and help to identify and enrich the care and education of children with special needs. Partnerships between governments, NGO's, communities and families can help ensure the provision of good care and education for children, especially for those most disadvantaged, through activities centered on the child, focused on the family, based within the community and supported by national, multi-sect oral policies and adequate resources." (para 30)

"Governments , through relevant ministries, have the primary responsibility of formulating early childhood care and education policies within he context of national EFA plans, mobilizing political and popular support, and promoting flexible, adaptable programmes for young children that are appropriate to their age and not mere downward extensions of formal school systems. The education of parents and other caregivers in better child care, building on traditional practices, and the systematic use of early childhood indicators, are important in achieving this goal." (para. 31)

Purpose

Although the Jomtien Declaration and Framework gave international presence and sanction to early childhood care and development or ECCD and despite advances in the past 13 years-- reduced infant and child mortality; the knowledge base for ECD has grown as has the overall awareness of ECD of political leaders, funders, planners and the population at large; increases in enrolment in early childhood programs; some increased financing for ECD and some inclusion of ECD in national plans, there remains a lack of attention accorded to EFA's first goal including:

A lack of good and comprehensive laws and policies in National Action Plans, especially for children under 3

An over-emphasis on education defined as schooling and not enough on the wider learning opportunities present at home and the community i.e. ECD programmes are still highly concentrated on preschool education, tend to reach children who live in urban areas and are from better off families

Lack of funding committed to this purpose on the ground from governments

In addition, the two ECCD indicators defined in and used as a part of the Year 2000 Assessment of Education for All were both quantitative indicators of access or enrolment; no indicators were included that measured child development and learning or that assessed the quality of programmes. In addition, countries used different definitions and age ranges in their reporting, making comparison difficult. Although the EFA assessment continued to help place ECCD on national and international agendas and demonstrated the potential value of ECCD indicators, there remains a need to create a core set of indicators that can be used internationally for advocacy purposes in addition to national indicators developed in-country and incorporated into standard reporting systems at both national and international levels.

Goals and Objectives

As an active participant in the EFA process at international, regional and national levels over the past 13 years, the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development (CGECCD), a diverse consortium of agencies, donors, NGOs and foundations that links with regional-based ECD networks comprising individuals and organisations involved in programming, research, policy-advocacy, monitoring and evaluation in the field, is also the lead organization (through the Consultative Group's Working Group on ECD/EFA) for the EFA Flagship Program on Early Childhood Regional Capacity Building Initiative (for more information about the Consultative Group).

The main goals of this initiative are to:

1) Highlight attention to the importance of Integrated Early Childhood Care and Development

2) To demonstrate/advocate the positive linkages between ECD and broader EFA goals for example, in preparing children for school, increasing access, achievement and retention in primary school and as a way of improving girls education.

3) To monitor the progress since Dakar of the first EFA goal at local, national, regional and international levels. In addition to look at how countries are including strategies to support young children affected by HIV/AIDS in developing EFA national plans of action.

Our current activities include:

1) Compiling, analyzing and disseminating information from research studies and other materials that demonstrate the positive impact of ECD on broader EFA goals i.e. school readiness, retention and achievement in primary grades especially for girls i.e. ongoing impact assessment studies (both quantitative and qualitative) in Nepal which demonstrate the positive impact of ECD on achievement and retention in the lower primary grades as well as other studies in the Caribbean, Colombia, Cuba, Laos, Turkey, South Africa, Guatemala, India, Jordan etc. Related to the above, the next issue of the Coordinators' Notebook (due out in early summer 2004) uses an investment as well as a rights perspective to review/explore the potential benefits (including the broader set of economic arguments) that accrue to investing in programs directed toward improving the survival and development of children during their early years. In addition, the issue explores how what we know bears on global efforts such as EFA, Millennium Development Goals, UN Special Session on Children's 'A World Fit for Children' and our progress to date on these initiatives.

2) Collecting case studies of countries who have developed ECD strategies as part of their national EFA plans especially for children under three who are invisible in many EFA plans at country level. For example:

- Tanzania and the work of an ECD Advocacy and Networking Group that among other activities produces an ECD/EFA newsletter and worked to ensure that ECD was seen as a priority at the MINEDAF VIII - Eighth Conference for Ministers of Education of African Member States in December 2002

- Jordan's national strategy on Early Childhood Development-their experiences and achievements (to be posted shortly)

3) Identifying and creating opportunities for advocacy and coordination/action at global, regional, national and local levels

4) Coordinating, communicating and disseminating further work of the Consultative Group and others on improving existing and developing better global and national ECCD Indicators

Progress on these objectives will be disseminated widely including through the development and ongoing updating of this EFA/ECD Flagship Website, which the Consultative Group is responsible for developing and updating. The main objective of the site is to bring users up to date on goals/information related to ECCD in the Dakar framework, the purpose of the flagship initiative, updated information on those countries including ECD into their national plans (what are they talking about) which countries are underway with their plans and to provide resources and contacts for those who have not yet included ECCD in their national plans.

It is hoped that the site could also provide information to help those working on their EFA Plans (or not as the case may be) to move beyond what the two current EFA indicators are.

Links and Resources

Contact Information


To send in material related to progress and updates on ECD/EFA, please contact the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development - through its international Secretariat and the CG ECD/EFA Working Group at: info@ecdgroup.com

Last update: January 2004