Action Blog: Early Childhood Development

“Leave No Child Behind” reveals that we must do more to protect millions of children with disabilities around the world. Read Nourou's story and sign the petition.

Global Partnership for Education and the Center for Universal Education at Brookings held an event at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC to discuss the progress made towards achieving gender transformation in education systems.

The Ensuring All Children THRIVE: Early Childhood Development in Conflict and Crisis Settings took place on November 19, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. 

Leave No Child Behind: Invest in the Early Years Report Summary by Light for the World, Open Society Foundations, International Disability and Development Consortium, Early Childhood Development Action Network, Global Campaign for Education, and Global Campaign for Education-US.

The report begins by highlighting the Sustainable Development Goals where inclusive early childhood education is at the root. Key findings and policy recommendations reflected on funding are discussed globally and with a specific focus on Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

For years, childhood education professionals have advocated for early access to early childhood development (ECD) programs as a means of leveling the playing field between better-resourced, more affluent students and more marginalized and vulnerable students. Focusing on early literacy and numeracy skills during the pre-primary and primary years can be a useful way to address achievement gaps. However, ECD programs often feel pressured to spend the bulk of their time on specific literacy and numeracy competencies, ignoring some of the “soft skills” that are critical to development in the early years. These skills, including social-emotional learning and global citizenship competencies, not only increase students’ success in school, but also help prepare them for their future as adults.

Early childhood education (ECE) or pre-primary education is one of the smartest investments countries around the world can make. As a core component of early childhood development in concert with nutrition and protective, loving care, early learning is critical to a child’s first 1,000 days when their brains are developing more rapidly than at any other time in life.

Little Ripples is an early childhood education program that empowers refugees and communities affected by humanitarian crises to deliver child-centered, quality, and comprehensive pre-primary education that supports the social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development of children ages three to five. Little Ripples is designed to be refugee- and community-led in order to build long-term capacity and address the unique needs of children and communities affected by trauma, violence, displacement, and uncertainty.

On Thursday, April 11th during the World Bank Civil Society Meetings the Global Campaign for Education-US moderated a panel on the Importance of Investing in Disability Inclusion Early Childhood Education with representatives from the Bank Information Center, Light for the World, Open Society Foundations, and the World Bank.

The global indicator for SDG 4.2.1, the goal focused on early childhood, is the “percentage of children under 5 years of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being.”The most recent SDG 4 Data Digest from UNESCO evaluates progress against creating the right measures for this and clearly identifies that we “need a definition of developmentally on track.”