.
T

anzania, Uganda, the United States, South Africa, and China have very different approaches to education and human services. Yet they face similar challenges when supporting early childhood development (ECD). Salzburg Global Seminar recently hosted a convening of fellows from the Education Policymakers Network (EPN,) giving attendees a chance to learn from one another and gain an appreciation for other global perspectives on early childhood education efforts. Five of us—from each of the above-mentioned countries—aim here to provide a brief update on where our countries and regions are in the development efforts towards quality ECD.

Over the past several months we have found common challenges among their ECD systems. Shortcomings include a lack of cohesive approach or a lack of resources to implement good policies. Tanzania and South Africa are successful outliers. Tanzania has moved toward a more cohesive, well-funded system over the past five years. South Africa recently transferred the function of ECD from the department of Social Development to Basic Education. The United States, meanwhile, lags with similar governance systems—Canada and the EU—which have national systems of early education.

Growing bodies of research show the positive impact of high-quality early childhood education on both families and communities. As such, many Salzburg Fellows spoke on the need to advocate for more integrated early learning and development into their education service infrastructure. Members of this working group in particular identified six common areas of focus among our countries to help realize the potential of early childhood systems—illustrated by the model below.

  1. Child Outcomes, Ready for Learning in School

Each country lacks valid and reliable tools for measuring learning outcomes. Most assessment methods in common use are narrow in their scope of measure. To measure more complex outcomes such as vocabulary development, social skills, and problem solving is difficult. While these measurements would do a better job at measuring the long-term impact of early learning programs, implementing them is challenging. Individual concerns in member nations include:

  • Uganda cites the lack of proper assessment tools for 2-5 years old children as a major system challenge.
  • United States assessments vary by city and state and are often heavily academic in focus. This makes gauging the impact and child outcomes from early learning interventions very difficult except for in small, controlled studies.
  • South Africa does not have universal testing of learner readiness at the Early Childhood Development level and has embarked on testing as children enter grade 1, but even this is not done systemwide.
  1. Improving Access and Equity

Each country wants to expand access to ECD for more families. Currently, programs are a mix of public and privately funded centers. Affordability and availability of programs are common challenges for families trying to access childcare and/or preschool.

  • Tanzania has made significant progress. Following the new policy on fee free education in 2015, the enrollment in Pre-primary has been increased up to 78%. The government has now set the standards to make sure all children with age cohort 3-5, including those with special need, attends pre-primary school
  • In the U.S., families spend up to 25% of their income on childcare, and many don't have the means to pay. In total, only 44% of children in the U.S. attend preschool in 2020.  President Biden proposed an initiative that would cap family childcare costs at 7%, but it has failed to pass Congress.
  • Several trends in Uganda have driven increased need for early childcare. Extended families are declining, the effects of urbanization, work-driven migration, and the increasing participation of women in the labor market. Yet, gross enrollment for early childhood programs in Uganda currently stands at only 18.7%.  
  1. Improving the Quality of Care and Education

The promise of positive outcomes for children in school and later life is grounded in programs that offer high quality early learning, often coupled with supportive services for families. All six have efforts aimed at improving quality.

  • In the U.S., more than a decade of decentralized state and federal investments into a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) have failed to show an impact on child development. Federal childcare funding to states sets aside funding for quality improvement efforts. It is difficult to measure the impact of these efforts because they are so decentralized, and states lack data systems that can effectively evaluate these efforts.
  1. Increase Public Investment

While all 5 nations have a history of investments and national structures overseeing K-12 education, challenges regarding some aspects of service delivery, funding, and implementation.  5 nations all lack a clear national early childhood education effort that includes policy, implementation, and a funding mechanism.

  1. Social and Emotional Skills’ Development and Wellbeing

Each country faces pressures to push academic skills in the early years, despite evidence that young children may not be ready for these, physically or cognitively. Research and early learning leaders are clear that preschool programs are more successful when they are grounded in developmental approaches—a breadth of skills. The challenge, like with primary education, is that policy makers, curriculum specialists and administrators often press for outcomes on academic assessments. The effect is that teaching practices are dedicated to skills that are more appropriate for older children, leaving young children without some critical preliminary social emotional skills that are critical for later school success.

  • Uganda sites that classroom practices are often too academic and inflexible for young children.
  • In the U.S., there are several new social and emotional curriculum and frameworks. For example, The Ruler is an approach with promising outcomes for children and staff.  
  • Among our countries, Western Cape, South Africa has done the most work in this area. They have explored using behavioral science to explain how context influences caregiver behavior in poor communities. The diagram below demonstrates some of these barriers graphically.
  • Interesting insights emerged which could transcend to other Global South countries. Some of these include caregivers’ view that play-based learning is simply not on caregivers’ radar as the role of parents is to provide basic needs like clothing or food to the children. Other findings include that caregivers assume that their children are not ready for learning yet, especially if less than three years old. Low self-efficacy of caregivers also emerged strongly—where parents don’t believe they have the capacity to execute the behaviors necessary to help their children develop cognitively.  
  • Future work in the form of ideation, prototyping, and deep user-testing is needed to ensure intervention designs directly address the barriers, are feasible to implement, and are desired by caregivers.
  • Some potential, preliminary design directions emerged which could be explored in other contexts. Designs to target caregiver behavior should include reshaping caregivers’ understanding of the benefits of play and learning how to integrate play into their everyday lives.
  • Another possibility was to remold caregivers’ understanding of the benefits of play and assist caregivers with psycho-social support to deal with contextual stressors. And lastly make young children’s (i.e., under 3-years old) cognitive development visible to caregivers.

While this example is South African focused, the lessons learned here could transcend to other countries and therefore sharing in these circles has provided us with opportunities to do so.

  1. Professional Development and Professional Standards

Unlike education professionals for more formal school, early child development professionals have a wide range of training and expertise. While we know the ages of birth to five include significant brain development, the investments in teachers’ development and programs do not match the brain development, and its implications for later educational success.  

  • In the U.S., there are no common teaching requirements in private preschools or childcare. Preschools located in public schools generally require a college degree and certifications. Higher education institutions are not motivated to provide early learning degrees due to the inconsistent requirements, and the low pay for the field has reduced the number of students entering the career.  
  • The Tanzania Institute of Education [TIE] launched the Pre-Primary Education Curriculum in 2016 which emphasizes on child-centered teaching approach in which the child is the center of the learning process which are meant to develop skills in pre-literacy, numeracy, and literacy skills. In 2018, Tanzania with UNICEF support, developed a module for Pre-primary teachers intending to provide ongoing training for teachers to continue building professional capacity to facilitate the child effectively learning.

Recommendations for joint ECD efforts by Salzburg Global Seminar Fellows:

  1. Joint Social and Emotional efforts among fellows and consider a workgroup on early childhood education.
  2. Further integration of how behavioral insights to be used to better understand reasons for parental and educator engagement and disengagement.  
  3. Joint meeting with fellows from nations that have achieved a more robust national early learning system focused on common challenges.
  4. Research and case study options for early learning outcome measures that are designed for young children that are being used in other nations.

About
Salvatory Alute
:
Salvatory Alute is the District Education Officer: President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government, Arusha District Council.
About
Beth Bye
:
Beth Bye is the commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood in Connecticut.
About
Ammaarah Martinus
:
Ammaarah Martinus is the director of policy, research and analysis at the Western Cape Government, Department of the Premier, in South Africa.
About
Fred Musisi
:
Fred Musisi is a senior lecturer at Muteesa I Royal University and a policy researcher in the Department of Education, Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.

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www.diplomaticourier.com

Learning Together: Early Childhood Development on Three Continents

Photo by Jerry Wang via Unsplash.

September 1, 2022

Tanzania, Uganda, the United States, South Africa, and China have very different approaches to education and human services. Yet they face similar challenges when supporting early childhood development, writes Salvatore Alute, Beth Bye, Ammaarah Martinus, and Fred Musisi.

T

anzania, Uganda, the United States, South Africa, and China have very different approaches to education and human services. Yet they face similar challenges when supporting early childhood development (ECD). Salzburg Global Seminar recently hosted a convening of fellows from the Education Policymakers Network (EPN,) giving attendees a chance to learn from one another and gain an appreciation for other global perspectives on early childhood education efforts. Five of us—from each of the above-mentioned countries—aim here to provide a brief update on where our countries and regions are in the development efforts towards quality ECD.

Over the past several months we have found common challenges among their ECD systems. Shortcomings include a lack of cohesive approach or a lack of resources to implement good policies. Tanzania and South Africa are successful outliers. Tanzania has moved toward a more cohesive, well-funded system over the past five years. South Africa recently transferred the function of ECD from the department of Social Development to Basic Education. The United States, meanwhile, lags with similar governance systems—Canada and the EU—which have national systems of early education.

Growing bodies of research show the positive impact of high-quality early childhood education on both families and communities. As such, many Salzburg Fellows spoke on the need to advocate for more integrated early learning and development into their education service infrastructure. Members of this working group in particular identified six common areas of focus among our countries to help realize the potential of early childhood systems—illustrated by the model below.

  1. Child Outcomes, Ready for Learning in School

Each country lacks valid and reliable tools for measuring learning outcomes. Most assessment methods in common use are narrow in their scope of measure. To measure more complex outcomes such as vocabulary development, social skills, and problem solving is difficult. While these measurements would do a better job at measuring the long-term impact of early learning programs, implementing them is challenging. Individual concerns in member nations include:

  • Uganda cites the lack of proper assessment tools for 2-5 years old children as a major system challenge.
  • United States assessments vary by city and state and are often heavily academic in focus. This makes gauging the impact and child outcomes from early learning interventions very difficult except for in small, controlled studies.
  • South Africa does not have universal testing of learner readiness at the Early Childhood Development level and has embarked on testing as children enter grade 1, but even this is not done systemwide.
  1. Improving Access and Equity

Each country wants to expand access to ECD for more families. Currently, programs are a mix of public and privately funded centers. Affordability and availability of programs are common challenges for families trying to access childcare and/or preschool.

  • Tanzania has made significant progress. Following the new policy on fee free education in 2015, the enrollment in Pre-primary has been increased up to 78%. The government has now set the standards to make sure all children with age cohort 3-5, including those with special need, attends pre-primary school
  • In the U.S., families spend up to 25% of their income on childcare, and many don't have the means to pay. In total, only 44% of children in the U.S. attend preschool in 2020.  President Biden proposed an initiative that would cap family childcare costs at 7%, but it has failed to pass Congress.
  • Several trends in Uganda have driven increased need for early childcare. Extended families are declining, the effects of urbanization, work-driven migration, and the increasing participation of women in the labor market. Yet, gross enrollment for early childhood programs in Uganda currently stands at only 18.7%.  
  1. Improving the Quality of Care and Education

The promise of positive outcomes for children in school and later life is grounded in programs that offer high quality early learning, often coupled with supportive services for families. All six have efforts aimed at improving quality.

  • In the U.S., more than a decade of decentralized state and federal investments into a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) have failed to show an impact on child development. Federal childcare funding to states sets aside funding for quality improvement efforts. It is difficult to measure the impact of these efforts because they are so decentralized, and states lack data systems that can effectively evaluate these efforts.
  1. Increase Public Investment

While all 5 nations have a history of investments and national structures overseeing K-12 education, challenges regarding some aspects of service delivery, funding, and implementation.  5 nations all lack a clear national early childhood education effort that includes policy, implementation, and a funding mechanism.

  1. Social and Emotional Skills’ Development and Wellbeing

Each country faces pressures to push academic skills in the early years, despite evidence that young children may not be ready for these, physically or cognitively. Research and early learning leaders are clear that preschool programs are more successful when they are grounded in developmental approaches—a breadth of skills. The challenge, like with primary education, is that policy makers, curriculum specialists and administrators often press for outcomes on academic assessments. The effect is that teaching practices are dedicated to skills that are more appropriate for older children, leaving young children without some critical preliminary social emotional skills that are critical for later school success.

  • Uganda sites that classroom practices are often too academic and inflexible for young children.
  • In the U.S., there are several new social and emotional curriculum and frameworks. For example, The Ruler is an approach with promising outcomes for children and staff.  
  • Among our countries, Western Cape, South Africa has done the most work in this area. They have explored using behavioral science to explain how context influences caregiver behavior in poor communities. The diagram below demonstrates some of these barriers graphically.
  • Interesting insights emerged which could transcend to other Global South countries. Some of these include caregivers’ view that play-based learning is simply not on caregivers’ radar as the role of parents is to provide basic needs like clothing or food to the children. Other findings include that caregivers assume that their children are not ready for learning yet, especially if less than three years old. Low self-efficacy of caregivers also emerged strongly—where parents don’t believe they have the capacity to execute the behaviors necessary to help their children develop cognitively.  
  • Future work in the form of ideation, prototyping, and deep user-testing is needed to ensure intervention designs directly address the barriers, are feasible to implement, and are desired by caregivers.
  • Some potential, preliminary design directions emerged which could be explored in other contexts. Designs to target caregiver behavior should include reshaping caregivers’ understanding of the benefits of play and learning how to integrate play into their everyday lives.
  • Another possibility was to remold caregivers’ understanding of the benefits of play and assist caregivers with psycho-social support to deal with contextual stressors. And lastly make young children’s (i.e., under 3-years old) cognitive development visible to caregivers.

While this example is South African focused, the lessons learned here could transcend to other countries and therefore sharing in these circles has provided us with opportunities to do so.

  1. Professional Development and Professional Standards

Unlike education professionals for more formal school, early child development professionals have a wide range of training and expertise. While we know the ages of birth to five include significant brain development, the investments in teachers’ development and programs do not match the brain development, and its implications for later educational success.  

  • In the U.S., there are no common teaching requirements in private preschools or childcare. Preschools located in public schools generally require a college degree and certifications. Higher education institutions are not motivated to provide early learning degrees due to the inconsistent requirements, and the low pay for the field has reduced the number of students entering the career.  
  • The Tanzania Institute of Education [TIE] launched the Pre-Primary Education Curriculum in 2016 which emphasizes on child-centered teaching approach in which the child is the center of the learning process which are meant to develop skills in pre-literacy, numeracy, and literacy skills. In 2018, Tanzania with UNICEF support, developed a module for Pre-primary teachers intending to provide ongoing training for teachers to continue building professional capacity to facilitate the child effectively learning.

Recommendations for joint ECD efforts by Salzburg Global Seminar Fellows:

  1. Joint Social and Emotional efforts among fellows and consider a workgroup on early childhood education.
  2. Further integration of how behavioral insights to be used to better understand reasons for parental and educator engagement and disengagement.  
  3. Joint meeting with fellows from nations that have achieved a more robust national early learning system focused on common challenges.
  4. Research and case study options for early learning outcome measures that are designed for young children that are being used in other nations.

About
Salvatory Alute
:
Salvatory Alute is the District Education Officer: President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government, Arusha District Council.
About
Beth Bye
:
Beth Bye is the commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood in Connecticut.
About
Ammaarah Martinus
:
Ammaarah Martinus is the director of policy, research and analysis at the Western Cape Government, Department of the Premier, in South Africa.
About
Fred Musisi
:
Fred Musisi is a senior lecturer at Muteesa I Royal University and a policy researcher in the Department of Education, Kingdom of Buganda, Uganda.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.