Children Wellbeing Across Cultures: Reaching the Unreached and Including the Excluded Sheldon Shaeffer Chair, Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific Regional Network on Early Childhood (ARNEC)

Inclusive Early Childhood Contents Inclusive Early Childhood Care and Education Why is it important and why invest in it? What is it? Why do it? What does it do? How to do it?

Core Messages Good quality, comprehensive, and integrated ECCE programmes are essential for the well-being of young children, their future educational success, and the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals. ECCE programmes must be genuinely inclusive, available to all young children, with a special focus on the most disadvantaged. ECCE programmes are important in achieving a truly inclusive education system. They help get both “children ready for school” – and ready for learning – and “schools ready for children”.

Provocations We know that the most disadvantaged children (over 250 million under 5) benefit the most from ECCE programmes: girls, migrants, and others affected by conflict, disaster, and abuse children of the extreme poor and living in rural and remote areas children in poor health and with disabilities and delays children of linguistic/ethnic minorities So why are these children most often excluded from ECCE programmes?

Provocations We know that good quality ECCE programmes lead to: better, more equal outcomes for children – e.g., lower mortality, better school achievement, higher future incomes less inequality and poverty transmitted across generations So why do so many governments ignore these facts and pay so little attention to early childhood?

(1) ECCE: Why is it important? Sustainable Development Goal 4.2: All nations of the world should, by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care, and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education. Two indicators for the Goal: The percentage of children under five years of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning, and psychosocial well-being The participation rate in one year of organized learning before the official primary entry age, by sex

Why invest in ECCE? Early childhood is the most important developmental phase in the human lifespan. Inadequate ECCE leads later to serious individual and social costs -- poorer health and nutrition, higher rates of infant mortality, lower levels of educational achievement, and greater unemployment. Preventive early interventions yield higher returns compared to later remedial services.

Moral and Legal Arguments Children have rights – to education, health, and general well-being -- and good quality ECCE programmes can help fulfill these rights. Children deserve good caregivers, good health, and good early learning – and to have safe, secure, and happy childhoods. Early interventions in ECCE reduce child abuse and child welfare costs. Families deserve and need support to raise their children. States and local communities have a legal and moral obligation to provide such support. I’ve changed these around enough that I’m not sure the citation should stay!

The Cultural Argument ECCE programmes should be embedded in local culture and delivered in mother tongue. They are therefore more likely to have a strong impact on: cultural identity and self-esteem the inter-generational transmission of knowledge future participation in national development by often disadvantaged ethnic and linguistic minorities.

(2) Inclusive ECCE: What is it? An inclusive approach to ECCE: insists on getting all children into ECCE programmes of good quality – integrated with health, nutrition, and protection services is concerned with increasing enrolment, completion, and transition and ensuring longer-term school success requires (1) an analysis of what causes exclusion and (2) the active searching for, and targeted support to, those excluded

(3) Inclusive ECCE: Why do it? To help children realise the fundamental human right to education To improve the efficiency and reduce the costs of education systems – fewer drop outs, less wastage, less failure To promote individual and national economic, social, and political development To promote social cohesion and inclusion – to live together and welcome diversity To fulfil internationally mandated goals – the targets of the SDGs

(4) Inclusive ECCE: What does It do? focuses on access (overcoming exclusion from ECCE programmes) by expanding provision, both public and private (home- , community-, and centre-based) which proactively seek excluded groups does not exclude, stereotype, or discriminate on the basis of difference is responsive to the diverse needs of all young children – their health and nutrition, socio-economic and family background, culture and language, and differing abilities, needs, and learning styles

Inclusive ECCE: What does it do? uses diversity as an opportunity for better learning (not as a problem) is affordable and accessible, especially for excluded groups promotes gender equity in enrolment and outcomes by eliminating gender stereotypes and guaranteeing both girl-and boy-friendly facilities, learning materials, and teaching methods .

Inclusive ECCE: What does it do? systematically identifies and maps the excluded and analyses the causes of their exclusion develops prevention strategies to overcome the barriers to ECCE is concerned with the quality of facilities, curriculum, and teaching (overcoming exclusion within ECCE programmes) implements a comprehensive reform of the ECCE sub-sector -- its content, approaches, methods, structures, and strategies.

(5) Inclusive ECCE: How to do it? Develop an inclusive vision and goals for the entire education system, starting from early childhood Design a comprehensive, integrated approach to the healthy development and education of all children from pre-school through the early grades – the critical transition years Develop ECCE curricula and learning materials oriented toward inclusion (e.g., without stereotypes, celebrating diversity) Promote inclusive teaching-learning strategies and practices – child-centred, interactive, flexible – suitable to those most excluded from the system

Inclusive ECCE: How to do it? Ensure collaboration across sectors – education, health, social welfare, etc. – in inclusive ECCE policies, strategies, programmes, structures, and budgets Ensure inclusion-oriented pre-service and in-service teacher education (for pre-school and the early grades) Develop mother tongue-based language policies with pre-school and the early grades (initial literacy) in the child’s home language

Summary: ECCD Increases the Sustainability and Equity of Development Interventions in ECCD have sustainable, long-term effects both on a child’s well-being and on the development of human capital, social cohesion, and economic success. The most disadvantaged children experience the most dramatic gains from ECCD programmes – but are least likely to be enrolled. The unreached must therefore be more adequately reached and the excluded, more genuinely included.

Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC) www.arnec.net