Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood?

A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030. This is an important omission because of the substantial brain, cognitive and socioemotional developments that occur in early life and because of increasing evidence of early-life learning's large impacts on subsequent education and lifetime wellbeing. We provide an overview of this evidence and use new analyses to illustrate medium- and long-term implications of early learning, first by presenting associations between pre-primary programme participation and adolescent mathematics and science test scores in 73 countries and secondly, by estimating the costs of inaction (not making pre-primary programmes universal) in terms of forgone lifetime earnings in 134 countries. We find considerable losses, comparable to or greater than current governmental expenditures on all education (as percentages of GDP), particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In addition to improving primary, secondary and tertiary schooling, we conclude that to attain SDG 4 and reduce inequalities in a post-COVID era, it is essential to prioritize quality early childhood care and education, including adopting policies that support families to promote early learning and their children's education

Playing with maths: Facilitating the learning in play-based learning

C1 - Journal Articles RefereedEARLY CHILDHOOD PROFESSIONALS HAVE different opinions about intentionally teaching mathematics to young children. Not only is the appropriateness of teaching mathematical concepts to children in early childhood settings contested but what to teach is subject to debate. A review of the literature, however, demonstrates that children are better equipped for success if they master basic mathematical concepts before entering formal education, and that these skills can be developed in play-based activities, where teachers actively engage in maths talk. This paper argues for the purposeful integration of mathematics teaching and learning in early childhood education curricula, and the need for early childhood educators to have sound pedagogical content knowledge and clear learning objectives in order to support and extend children's emerging understanding of mathematical concepts

Recognizing early childhood education as a human right in international law

There is incontrovertible evidence that early learning opportunities shape long-term development and health. Nevertheless, early childhood care and education (ECCE) is not expressly mentioned as part of the right to education in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This paper argues that the right to education can nevertheless be regarded as including ECCE. We examine the treaties, General Comments, and 264 Concluding Observations by relevant UN monitoring bodies, covering 152 countries from 2015 to 2020, to determine whether the right to ECCE is regarded as part of States’ obligations and the content of the duty. These demonstrate consistently that States must provide affordable, accessible, quality, inclusive ECCE, with adequate resources. We argue that monitoring committees should draw these obligations together in one General Comment, thereby improving States’ accountability and guiding the delivery of ECCE.</p

Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood?

A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030. This is an important omission because of the substantial brain, cognitive and socioemotional developments that occur in early life and because of increasing evidence of early-life learning’s large impacts on subsequent education and lifetime wellbeing. We provide an overview of this evidence and use new analyses to illustrate medium- and long-term implications of early learning, first by presenting associations between pre-primary programme participation and adolescent mathematics and science test scores in 73 countries and secondly, by estimating the costs of inaction (not making pre-primary programmes universal) in terms of forgone lifetime earnings in 134 countries. We find considerable losses, comparable to or greater than current governmental expenditures on all education (as percentages of GDP), particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In addition to improving primary, secondary and tertiary schooling, we conclude that to attain SDG 4 and reduce inequalities in a post-COVID era, it is essential to prioritize quality early childhood care and education, including adopting policies that support families to promote early learning and their children’s education