Status of Young Children Around the World

Learning begins before a child walks through the classroom door. From the earliest age, children's development and learning are fostered through their interactions with caring human beings in secure, nurturing and stimulating environments. Young childrens’ experiences in the first years of life - well before they begin school - create the foundation for subsequent learning. Although early childhood is a period of great potential for human growth and development, it is also a time when children are especially fragile and vulnerable.

Today, despite considerable progress, the status of young children remains disturbing, particularly in the poorest countries. A child born in the developing world has a four out of ten chance of living in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than US$1 a day. An estimated 10.5 million children died in 2005 before they reached age 5, most from preventable diseases and in countries that have experienced major armed conflict since 1999. AIDS has orphaned more than 15 million children under age 18, 80% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. The rights of millions of children are violated by trafficking, labour, abuse and neglect. Finally, many of the 50 million children whose births are not registered each year are unable to access basic services or schooling as a result.

For all these reasons early intervention is crucial: it is far more challenging and costly to compensate for educational and social disadvantage among older children and adults than it is to provide preventive measures and support in early childhood. Good-quality early childhood care and education programmes - including immunization, parenting education, home-based activities and kindergartens, pre- schools or nurseries - provide health, nutrition, hygiene, stimulation and social interaction that support children's development and learning. Participation of young children in such programmes can lead to a more equitable society.

ECCE: a right in itself
Developing country governments thus far have generally given less policy attention to early childhood (and to literacy) than to primary education and gender parity. For vulnerable and disadvantaged children, the lack of a national ECCE policy truly represents a missed opportunity. Where ECCE does get attention, it is usually geared towards ages 3 and up, and focused on the years before primary school entry, leaving opportunities for younger children overlooked,

ECCE is both a right and a major contributor to development and poverty reduction. Fortunately, international commitment to early childhood is growing. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by 192 nations, focuses on guaranteeing the rights of young children to survive, develop and be protected. The 1990 World Declaration on Education for ALL states that 'learning begins at birth' and encourages the development of ECCE. The World Education Forum at Dakar in 2000 reaffirmed the importance of ECCE in reaching basic education goals, as did the UN Special Session on Children in 2002. These ground- breaking legal and political commitments all recognize that children are born with the right to have their learning needs met through approaches that promote their holistic development. To date, however, these rights are far from the reality for many children.

Recent demographic, economic, social and political trends around have increased the need for comprehensive ECCE policies and programmes. Urbanization and the resulting changes to household structures have reduced the role of extended family members as care givers. Growing numbers of working mothers with young children have increased the demand for non-parental child care. Pressures to increase competitiveness in a world economy that is increasingly knowledge-based have led to calls for improving children's school readiness. World health crises (particularly HIV/AIDS) and other emergencies (e.g. famine, natural disaster and war) require responses to protect the safety and well-being of young children. These contextual trends have influenced the types and coverage of ECCE programmes as well as the extent to which nations have made progress towards achieving EFA goals.

The situation as described above reminds us that there is no place for complacency. We have a collective responsibility to ensure quality education for all, a responsibility that begins by providing strong foundations for children in the first eight years of their life and continues though adulthood.

Source:
EFA: Global Monitoring Report 2007, Strong Foundations, ECCE