UNESCO's "Early Childhood Care and Education"

Dear Colleagues,

I was very happy to see that the UNESCO's Early Childhood Care and Education webpage is filled with what we have learned in this masters program regarding the quality of education in this field. All the criteria to a quality curriculum are cited, like partnering with families in the children's education, play, children involvement, small ratio child- adult, well trained and well supported staff, to name but a few.

But what made me happier is to find responses to some of the questions that were still trotting in my mind. Concerning the importance of a small ratio child- staff in a classroom, here is what is said : 

"The notion of a reasonable ratio differs across countries, but fewer numbers help children to generate peer communication and engage together in project and group work according to their affinities and interests. The presence of sufficient numbers of staff also ensures that each group can enjoy the support of a trained professional who will lead children toward the attitudes, skills and knowledge valued in a particular society. In Sweden, for example, national statutory requirements for child-staff ratios do not exist, but the average across the age group 1- 6 years is 5.6 children per trained staff member. In the preschool class for 6-7 year olds, the national average is one teacher + assistant for 13 children. Such ratios and conditions are generally difficult to bring together in developing countries, but this should not be a reason for discouragement. To reach the levels of formal training found in richer countries may not be possible, but through the mobilisation of local mothers by community educators, programmes for young children can be generated at local level that enjoy satisfactory child-adult ratios and are highly relevant to the needs of participating children (Ball, 2002)". 

What means that my country Rwanda has a solution regarding the high number of children in classrooms.

Another thing that I found interesting is in the following paragraph:

"Early childhood care and education programmes should emphasise the child’s holistic development and extend beyond assisting the child’s transition to formal schooling. High quality childcare, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, promotes motivation, confidence, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness". Yes this is true because while children in developed countries spontaneously attend school, in developing countries, due to the poverty culture, children have to be motivated, especially through their families or parents by giving them food in exchange of allowing their progeny to go to school.

The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and UNESCO's Regional  Office in Dakar are launching "Childhood Culture", an inter generational African series of children's books. Through the experiences of Bouba and Zaza, the main characters of these series, children, young and older, parents and teachers are developing life and socialization skills outside the family context. These series bring on the table subjects affecting the lives of African families which parents sometimes are reluctant to address such as war and conflict, the HIV Aids Pandemic, the issue of water resources and environmental protection. These series address the issue of glaring shortage of children's books adapted to African contexts, when it has been demonstrated by a study that African children from 0 to 4 years of age generally have no books at home, especially in rural areas.

I find that this will play a crucial role in the journey to the quality of early childhood education in Africa.