Brief Glimpse of ECE Around the World

This week I visited the Center on the Developing Child, Harvard university, to glean some insights as to what is going on in other parts of the world in the field of Early Childhood Education.

Because of a lack of information on ECE and child development in Zambia, the ministry set out to create an assessment to administer to children to determine whether the state of readiness of children in that country for school upon entering for the first time.  The exam did a good job of utilizing appropriate assessment instruments.  Children were experiencing difficulties in showing readiness for school based on test items that required use of a pencil, which may children had not been exposed to due to lack of ECE.  However, when asked to complete tasks such as “stringing beads onto a shoelace, putting beans into a cup, unbuttoning and buttoning a shirt and playing a variation on nsolo (a traditional game).” ( Fink 2012 ) they were able to demonstrate mastery of fine motor control using these familiar skills.

In Chile a program is underway to improve ECE by addressing teacher development as well as health factors that contribute to the development of children.  This seems to be an example of a holistic approach towards child education/development that takes into account physical health in a child’s ability to learn, much the same as here in America we are concerned with how food insecurity impacts children in the classroom.

In Brazil the government is developing a national system of ECE, apparently due to a realization that in order to be globally competitive they need to invest in their children.  They are in the process of gathering experts from all over to develop the skills needed to create and implement policy in the educational field.

Each of these countries has common threads running through their efforts to develop ECE in their society.  First, equity in terms of making sure ECE is available to all children.  Zambia is approaching this by first correcting the absence of data available on the state of ECE in their country while Chile and Brazil are addressing equity jointly with excellence by initiating programs to development quality education as well as ensuring children’s needs are met in terms of physical health as well.

Fink, Guther, Beatrice Matafwali, Corrina Moucheraud, and Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski.The Zambian Early Childhood Development Project 2010 Assessment Final Report. Rep. Center on the Developing Child Harvard University, Dec. 2012. Web. <http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/>