Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

I did not receive a return email from my contact in South Africa but did find some information on the UNESCO website. There was an article about the push to accelerate early childhood care education in Africa. The countries of Angola, São Tomé & Principe, Swaziland and Zambia are working to boost early childhood care in their countries. The counties will be participating in training modules that will provide tools, skills and resources to people working with vulnerable children and their families. One of the fundamentals of IECCE model is that local and indigenous children are to be educated within their cultural context (UNESCO, 2013).

According to the UNESCO website:

Early Childhood Care and Education is having a hard time in Africa. Only a little more than one out of four African child aged between 0-8 get a chance to attend some kind of pre-school activities. But the situation differs enormously between countries and region. According to 2010 data the situation is as follows:

• In Southern Africa (SADC), early childhood enrolment stood at 45% on average
• In East Africa (EAC), only Kenya and Tanzania achieved above 30% level while the average went up to 27%.
• In Central Africa (ECCAS), despite the fact that pre-primary enrolment has more than doubled, the average has only reached 26%.
• In West Africa (ECOWAS) (with the exception of Cabo Verde and Ghana), progress has been more timid and rates (19 percent on average) and well below the average of 28% in sub-Saharan Africa (UNESCO, 2013).

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/dakar/about-this-office/single-view/news/big_push_workshop_to_accelerate_early_childhood_care_and_education_in_africa/#.Uwl1hvldUQY

The UNESCO website also featured articles regarding the Sub-Saharan Africa children being behind and not being able to reach the goals set for them by the Education for All goals. Key findings of the 2013/14 EFA Global Monitoring report:

• The pre-primary education gross enrolment ratio increased from 10% in 1999 to 18% in 2011, leaving the region lagging behind all others regions.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is far from achieving universal primary education (net enrolment ratio of 77%). No progress has been made since 2007, leaving nearly 30 million African children out of school.
• By 2011, the net enrolment ratio at lower secondary school reached 49%, but the number of adolescents out of school in the region remained at 22 million between 1999 and 2011, due to population growth.
• The number of illiterate African adults has increased by 37% since 1990, mainly due to population growth, reaching 182 million in 2011. By 2015, it is projected that 26% of all illiterate adults will live in sub-Saharan Africa, up from 15% in 1990.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, with teacher recruitment lagging behind growth in enrolment, pupil/teacher ratios stagnated and are now the highest in the world at the pre-primary and primary levels (UNESCO, 2013).

According to the report, a global learning crisis is costing $129 billion a year. Ten per cent of global spending on primary education is lost on poor quality education that is failing to ensure that children learn. This situation leaves one in four people in poor countries unable to read (UNESCO, 2014). The need for good teachers was expressed as this would help with children get the quality education that they need that would in turn help boost the economy in the future.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/dakar/about-this-office/single-view/news/education_for_all_goals_are_unlikely_to_be_reached_by_2015_in_africa/#.Uwl4I_ldUQY

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/dakar/about-this-office/single-view/news/severe_learning_crisis_in_sub_saharan_africa/#.Uwl5iPldUQY

Sharing Web Resources - National Black Child Development Institute(NBCDI)

This week I explored the links to:

Child Health Talk (CHT) (http://www.nbcdi.org/sites/default/files/resource-files/CHT%20Fall%202013d.pdf) Child Health Talk provides information, advice and resources to parents and providers about children’s health and well-being. CHT features articles, recipes, and activities that cover a range of topics, including literacy, safety, development, nutrition and physical activity (NBCDI, 2013). What I found interesting in the newsletter issue was the sections that provided a collection of developmental appropriate books for young learners that emphasized diversity and were relevant to the culture of children of color. These books were being provided to programs that have 70% or more children who come from low income families as a part of the First Book and NBCDI collaboration.

NBCDI also had a link(http://depts.washington.edu/pthru3/framework.html) to a framework for Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating PreK-3rd Grade Approaches by Kristie Kauerz (University of Washington) and Julia Coffman (Center for Evaluation Innovation). The framework is intended to be used a tool to support the development of comprehensive PreK-3rd grade approaches. The Framework helps to address key questions facing those who are developing PreK-3rd grade approaches in their school, district, or community including:

• What does a comprehensive PreK-3rd grade approach include?
• The word “alignment” is used often, but what needs to be aligned?
• What kinds of changes need to take hold in adults’ behaviors before we can expect to see improvements in child outcomes?
• What kinds of responsibilities need to be shared among 0-5 programs, grades K-3, families, and communities?(Kauerz and Coffman, 2013)

I signed up to receive the newsletter from the NBCDI but I have yet to receive an issue. I attempted to sign up again.

I feel the NBCDI website does contain information that adds to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education. Although this organization and their website provides information on improving and advancing the quality of life for Black children and families I believe that the information that they are sharing can be applied to help improve the quality for all children especially those of low SES.

New insight that I have gained this week was the information that I obtained from the Child Health Talk newsletter. The information on the variety of books available that promote cultural diversity and black history that are available for children from early childhood through grade school. I plan to purchase some of these books for my home and preschool library.

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

 My contact has not responded to my e-mail attempts so I have reviewed the Harvard University’s Global Children’s Initiative. Insights that I have gained after exploring the sight are:

1.     The Global Children’s Initiative uses science to enhance child well-being through innovations in policy and practice.

·         Its focus includes:

·         reframing the discourse around child health and development in the global policy arena by educating high-level decision-makers about the underlying science of learning, behavior, and health, beginning in the earliest years of life;

·         supporting innovative, multi-disciplinary research and demonstration projects to expand global understanding of how healthy development happens, how it can be derailed, and how to get it back on track; and

·         building leadership capacity in child development research and policy—focused on both individuals and institutions—in low- and middle-income countries to increase the number and influence of diverse voices and perspectives that are contributing to the growing global movement on behalf of young children (Center on the Developing Child, 2014).

2.     As part of its Global Children’s Initiative, the Center is launching Núcleo Ciência Pela Infância, its first major programmatic effort outside the United States. In collaboration with local experts, the project aims to use the science of child health and development to guide stronger policies and larger investments to benefit young children and their families in Brazil (The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2014).

3.     Guided by these strategic objectives, the Global Children’s Initiative has begun to build a portfolio of activities in three domains: early childhood development; mental health; and children in crisis and conflict situations. Each of these domains is being guided by a faculty working group that will facilitate continuing cross-disciplinary collaboration; design and implement new projects; and engage additional faculty, students, and collaborators beyond the Harvard community (Global Children’s Initiative, 2014).

Global children's initiative. (2014). Retrieved from http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/

Sharing Web Resources

       The Strong Start for America’s Children Act (#investinkids) has been introduced by Senator Tom Harkin and Representatives George Miller and Richard Hanna. This bill is relevant to my current professional development and adds to my understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field?

This bill is an important bipartisan step as we collectively work to ensure that our early childhood systems provide accessible, affordable, high quality and comprehensive services for our most vulnerable children and families – and NBCDI thanks these Members of Congress for their leadership (NBCDI, 2013).

New insight that I have gained from exploring the website is that the current president Dr. Felicia DeHaney that I mentioned in my January 18th post is stepping down as the present of the organization. The reason for her decision was not mentioned in the announcement.