Early childhood development renaissance: Parents’ visions and values in the post-pandemic era

This study explored strategies to rebuild and strengthen Zimbabwe’s early childhood development (ECD) programmes in the post-COVID-19 era, focusing on inclusive, resilient, and communitydriven approaches that address systemic inequities. While prior disparities increased the effect of the crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic brought its unique challenges, such as prolonged closure of ECD centres, limited access to resources and strained familial structures. These challenges highlighted vulnerabilities in the nation’s early childhood framework. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and resilience theory underpinned the study. The study was conducted in Zimbabwe, incorporating data from ECD school heads and teachers in charge. The interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative approach were used in this study. Moreover, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and document analysis were used to collect data in this study. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to establish actionable solutions proposed by participants. Findings revealed the need for recovery and improvement through community support systems, and culturally grounded interventions. Stakeholders emphasised the need for overhauling the ECD programme’s curriculum to align with crisis times, policy reforms, infrastructural development and capacity-building for teachers. This study highlights the urgency of rebuilding Zimbabwe’s ECD programmes, focusing on equity, resilience, and cultural relevance.

Early childhood development programmes have been found to be crucial in the development of children in physical, cognitive, socio-emotional and linguistic domains. For early childhood development (ECD) programmes to be effective, several factors need to be considered, among them human and material resources. Although the availability of the aforementioned factors is of the utmost importance, there is also a need to establish the unforeseen factors that can help ECD programmes to be more effective. Currently, there is little information regarding what can facilitate proficiency among early childhood teachers in their daily practice. This study focused on the impact of incentives on the performance of early childhood development teachers in the Lubombo region in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland. The objectives of the study were to find out the types of incentives given to ECD teachers, to examine the factors affecting the ECD teachers’ incentives and proficiency, and to explore the best ways of incentivising ECD teachers to improve their effectiveness. The research questions guiding the study were derived from the research objectives and the approach used in the study was purely qualitative. The study adopted a case study design and used unstructured questionnaires, cell phone interviews and focus group discussions as data collection tools. The research was confined to Lubombo, where a sample of 30 participants was selected. The sample included 10 ECD teachers, 10 parents and 10 administrators. The findings of the study were that ECD teachers are paid low salaries, which are not sustainable, and they are not hired by the government and so have no pensionable benefits. The study recommends that the use of incentives can improve the proficiency of early childhood teachers; ECD teachers should be paid salaries like any other teacher that are scaled according to their qualifications. Scholarships to further their studies should also be made available to them. More research is essential in areas of teachers’ proficiency and quality early childhood development programmes.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how early childhood development (ECD) programs are being established and supported in The Republic of Zambia, a landlocked country in southern Africa. First, we discuss the rationale for ECD programs. Based on a 10-day field visit to Zambia where we observed ECD programs, interviewed policy officials, and held focus groups with families, educators, and community groups, we reflect on practice and policy implications regarding supporting and increasing high-quality early education programs. Based on the analysis of this field visit, we provide some preliminary recommendations on increasing access to high-quality ECD programs. We also discuss the limitations of this study and the need for additional studies, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Investing in children in their early years represents a unique window of opportunity to improve individual, community, and societal outcomes. For poverty reduction and shared prosperity, investments in early childhood development (ECD) or early childhood education and development (ECED), are among the best investments that countries can make. This study provides an assessment of ECD policies and programs in Indonesia based on the World Bank’s Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER). Developed by the education global practice, SABER provides a set of diagnostic tools to assess country policies in a number of areas including ECD. The SABER-ECD tool employs a diagnostic framework structured around three policy goals: establishing an enabling environment, implementing widely, and monitoring and assuring quality. For each goal, three policy levers are analyzed, ranging from the legal framework for ECD services to the extent to which service providers such as care centers or preschools comply with national standards. The SABER-ECD tool to a large extent focuses on policy intent, but as its name indicates, the second policy goal in the ECD module is about implementation. The study relies on administrative and household survey data in order to provide a diagnostic of policies and programs related to ECD in Indonesia. Administrative data are used to assess ECD policies and programs at the national and district levels. The study consists of five chapters: chapter one gives overview. Chapter two applies the SABER-ECD framework at the national level. Chapter three focuses on measuring in a more comprehensive way the coverage of essential ECD interventions nationally and at the provincial level. Chapter four provides results from the application of the SABER-ECD framework to five districts. Chapter five compares the SABER-ECD ratings obtained for Indonesia with the ratings for other countries (in total, the tool has been implemented in about 28 countries so far).

New evidence suggests that over four months after the closure of early childhood development (ECD) programmes on 18 March 2020, the ECD sector was likely to be operating at less than a quarter of its pre-lockdown levels. Of the 38 percent of respondents from the new NIDS-CRAM survey reporting that children aged 0-6 in their households had attended ECD programmes before the lockdown in March, only 12 percent indicated that children had returned to these programmes by mid-July, well after programmes were allowed to reopen. Using these findings, we estimate that just 13 percent of children aged 0-6 were attending ECD programmes by mid-July to mid-August compared to 47 percent in 2018. The last time that ECD attendance rates were as low as this was in the early 2000s. At this point it is not yet clear what proportion of these declines are only temporary, or whether there will be a lasting impact on ECD enrolment in the country. This dramatic contraction in the ECD sector relates to prohibitive costs to reopening ‘safely’ imposed by the regulatory environment, coupled with shocks to the demand side for ECD programmes (both in terms of reduced household incomes and parent fears of children contracting COVID-19). When viewed from a broader socio-economic lens, the threat of ECD programme closures across the nation will have impacts beyond ECD operators to the lives of millions of children, millions of households and millions of adults who rely on these ECD services. A swift intervention by government is necessary to save this important sector and limit the ripple effect of programme closures on multiple layers of society.

Levels of access to early childhood development (ECD) programmes in South Africa are around 35 per cent for children aged zero to five, and lower for children in poor households. This despite evidence linking participation to benefits that address poverty, inequality and unemployment, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Notwithstanding government’s commitment to ECD as a universal right in ECD policy, state subsidies benefit only 13 per cent of children in quintiles one to three, limited by marginal increases in public sector budgets over the past decade. Shifting responsibility for ECD programmes to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) has the potential to catalyse broad reform to ensure universal access to quality ECD programmes. This paper considers the access gap that the DBE must address to realise the universal right to ECD. It evaluates two policy approaches to the expansion of public provision of ECD programmes: through a purpose-built centre approach or a mixed-model approach. The cost, capacity and policy implications for these two expansion approaches are evaluated, showing that a mixed-model approach will enable the realisation of the universal right to ECD more cost-efficiently than a purpose-built centre approach.

This chapter reports on platforms that promote early child development. The economics of early child development programs and packages are covered in chapter 24 in this volume (Horton and Black 2017). Early child development research, programs, and policies have advanced significantly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) during the past two decades (Black, Walker, and others 2016), spearheaded by three prominent advances.The first advance is the recognition that the foundations of adult health and well-being are based on prenatal and early-life genetic-environmental interactions that affect brain development. This recognition has created a strong emphasis on strategies to ensure that young children reach their developmental potential (Shonkoff and others 2012).The second advance is the urgent call for strategies to promote early child development, following estimates that more than 200 million children younger than age five years in LMICs are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential (Grantham-McGregor and others 2007), largely due to nutritional deficiencies and a lack of responsive caregiving. Recent estimates report that although the prevalence of at-risk children has declined, more than 43 percent of children in LMICs are at risk for poor development (Lu, Black, and Richter 2016). Initiatives during the first 1,000 days of life—the period from conception through age 24 months, when nutritional requirements are high and brain development is rapid—have focused attention on the need to ensure that children receive the interventions necessary to achieve their developmental potential.Finally, global economic growth in the 1990s and the success of the Millennium Development Goals in reducing poverty and stunting and in increasing child survival have brought optimism to efforts to promote child health and development. The evidence that interventions early in life are effective in promoting early child development (Engle and others 2007; Engle and others 2011; Nores and Barnett 2010) supports the implementation of such programs at scale.Calls from global leaders have emphasized increased investment, programs, and policies for early child development (Lake and Chan 2015) and have brought about the inclusion of early child development in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN 2015). This chapter reviews the definition of early child development; risks and protective factors related to early child development; early child development systems (rights and equity, integrated interventions and multisectoral coordination, governance, and quality improvement and accountability); and platforms needed to implement early child development programs that address children’s changing developmental skills across the continuum from infancy through early primary school. Definitions of age groupings and age-specific terminology used in this volume can be found in chapter 1 (Bundy and others 2017).

Nepal’s Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) programs are designed to support young children’s holistic development including a focus on physical, emotional, social, moral and intellectual development. They are also designed to support children’s successful transition to school. As such, inclusion of children with disabilities in these ECED programs would appear to be an important early intervention strategy for this already marginalised group. However, while inclusion of these children in ECED programs is viewed as desirable by the government and communities, in reality, it is not widespread. This research examined the reasons for the lack of inclusion of children with disabilities in the ECED programs with the aim of constructing a stakeholder-informed framework that would serve as a foundation for increasing enrolment of children in ECED programs. Through interviews, focus group discussions with key stakeholders and document reviews, it became evident that several contextual and organisational factors interacted to create multiple barriers to successful inclusion. Contextual factors included spirituality, caste, ethnicity, language, economic status and geographic location. Organisational factors included policy, attitudes, teacher efficacy, resources, coordination and communication processes and parental engagement. The identification of these factors by stakeholders provides an opportunity to develop a framework in which these factors can be explicitly addressed, and policy and strategic resourcing to address current barriers to the inclusion of children with disabilities in ECED programs in Nepal. This action is critical to ensuring increased numbers of young children with disabilities access early intervention and education programs to support their holistic development and the opportunities that education affords.

The advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been embraced in different organisations, education included. The response to the ICT policy in the Zimbabwe education system depends chiefly on the economic standing of the parents to the learners enrolled at a specific school. Thus, although adoption of ICTs in education, particularly in Early Childhood Development (ECD) programmes, has been oversubscribed, it draws deep into the pockets of parents to meet the requirements. Drawing from the Technology, Organisation and Environment model, the study explores the benefits of ICTs in ECD programmes in Zimbabwean public schools. A qualitative study is employed in which data are generated through observation, document analysis and focus group discussions (FGDs). The study adopted purposive sampling to conduct FGDs with Bachelor of Education degree students at one particular university in Zimbabwe as key informants. These were also practising ECD teachers at different primary schools in the Harare Metropolitan Province. Findings show that a number of ECD teachers had basic ICT skills but could not use them effectively in the teaching-learning activities due to lack of resources. Findings also reveal that these ICT resources were a result of initiatives from parents and well-wishers. The study therefore recommends the expansion of ICT resource mobilisation and staff development programmes in order to equip ECD educators.

This article presents a comprehensive examination of the contemporary landscape of Early Childhood Development (ECD) initiatives in Nepal, focusing on both their quality and accessibility. Through a meticulous analysis of secondary data, this study scrutinizes the current state of Early Childhood Education and Development (ECED) centers, the pivotal roles of educators, and the efficacy and caliber of ECD programs, thereby elucidating the prevailing opportunities and obstacles. A high-quality ECD program is fundamental in extending developmental prospects to all children, including those facing adversities, by furnishing them with requisite care, support, and safeguarding. Realizing this necessitates concerted efforts from diverse stakeholders, entailing heightened investments in ECD and the advocacy of its developmental imperatives. Paramount among these stakeholders is the family, serving as the primary gateway to ECD interventions, underscoring the imperative for tailored interventions within familial contexts. Moreover, communities wield significant potential in augmenting ECD initiatives. Thus, a decentralized approach to ECD delivery across all strata of governance emerges as imperative. The realization of quality ECD hinges upon the convergence of multifaceted inputs, harmonized across various domains. By fostering synergy among these inputs, ECD programs can achieve their utmost efficacy and impact, thereby fostering holistic child development.

The study sought to establish the impact of Early Childhood Development experiences on pupils’ performance at grade one level. The study was qualitative and designed to establish the effect of the Early Childhood Development(ECD) programme on pupil performance at grade one level. It aimed at highlighting ECD pedagogy that enhances effective teaching of early graders. The purposeful sample used consisted of four primary schools in Chivi,Masvingo Province and involved four teachers and eight pupils from schools. For data collection, the interview, document analysis and field notes were used. To analyse data, emergent categories were used and the results of the study confirmed that exposure to ECD programme enhances pupil performance at grade one level. Teachers favour to teach pupils who have done the ECD programme because they have the base upon which they can build. Major recommendations were that ECD teachers should employ empiricist strategies of teaching. It was also recommended that the Ministry of Education should equip and train ECD educators with pedagogical skills. It was further suggested that heads should supervise ECD centres so that the graduates are correctly socialised for formal education.

Canadian progress in early child development – putting science into action

This chapter makes a case for investing in early childhood development (ECD) programs and services as a key mechanism to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and contributing to peacebuilding efforts in the global context. The links among early childhood development, sustainable development and peacebuilding are discussed from macroeconomic, biodevelopmental and social perspectives. We use the Global Peace Index (formulated by the Institute of Economics and Peace to measure progress towards peace across countries) to illustrate links between ECD program outcomes and peacebuilding-relevant indicators. Drawing from this analysis, we frame a theory of change that includes overarching inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes of the ‘peacebuilding through ECD’ agenda. The chapter outlines research gaps and priorities to bolster the evidence-base of peacebuilding through ECD in multiple contexts. We put forth a call to action for interdisciplinary research and multi-sectoral partnerships to effectively leverage peacebuilding through ECD as a strategy for sustainable development.

In April 1994, South Africa held its historic first democratic election. The African National Congress overwhelmingly triumphed and Nelson Mandela became the first president of a free and democratic South Africa. In this review, the situation of South Africa's young children under apartheid and the context of young children in South Africa in 2012 are described. A situation analysis of early childhood development (ECD) in South Africa was undertaken using South African government ECD policy and programme implementation reports, and the main challenges affecting children and the ECD sector in South Africa was investigated. There has been progress since 1994, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Children now have access to a Grade R year, government education and social development budgets have increased and a per capita subsidy is available to qualifying children at ECD centres nationally. More children are in provision and in better-quality provision than before. However, much still remains to be done before we can say with confidence that the needs of our youngest children are being met. This study identifies infrastructure, nutrition, ECD programmes, teacher training, institutional capacity and funding as the major gaps in ECD provision.

Early childhood development (ECD) programmes the world over have been found to be central in the successful holistic development and positive future socioeconomic outcomes for young children. In Africa in general and in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, these programmes have been punctuated by overwhelming challenges related to poor funding and paucity of resources as well as vague policy models. The purpose of this study was to undertake a situation analysis of the ECD programme in rural primary schools in Zimbabwe. The study, which was premised on the positivist philosophy was therefore quantitative and utilized the descriptive survey design. A sample of 100 teachers was generated across 10 districts in 5 of the rural provinces of Zimbabwe using two stage sampling comprising purposive and randomization strategies in that order. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit data and was in certain instances, triangulated with observation. The study revealed that there was either constrained or total lack of funding of the ECD programme in rural schools in Zimbabwe, lack of government support and that the programme was not overly accessible to all children more so to those with disabilities. Meanwhile, policy guidelines were either unavailable in the rural primary schools or not religiously adhered to. The study then concluded that the ECD programme in rural primary schools in Zimbabwe was greatly compromised casting doubt on its quality and effectiveness. It was also concluded that the programme might have excluded many poor and disabled children in rural settings. On these bases the study recommended increased funding, resourcing and capacity building and advocated for policy review to ensure accommodation of the needs of children with disabilities and adoption of firmer enforcement procedures. In the ultimate, the study recommended further studies of national dimension, which should target mostly at rural settings.