Early child development care: policies in practice Professor Carol Aubrey

Early child development care: policies in practice Professor Carol Aubrey Innovative approaches in ECD?

Introduction • First goal of Education for All (UNESCO, 2000) to promote ECD for vulnerable children; • Reiterated UNESCO (2007) importance of ECD to improving physical & psycho-social wellbeing & in promoting cognitive gains directly/indirectly combating poverty. • By 2015 ECD and primary education have expanded but wide variation, many still pay fees and private provision has increased.

What is ECD? • School-based nursery education or class (and ‘katchi’); • Community-based pre-school or playgroups, usually part-time; • Centre-based childcare, usually for birth to three or birth to six; • Home-based childcare, usually for birth to three or birth to six; • Supplementary feeding programmes; • Home-visiting, parent education/support; • Health programmes, incl. monitoring, vaccinations & treatment.

ECD programmes • Draw on ideas/theories of child development (common themes within the discipline, eg James & Prout, 1990): • Childhood as a social construction and constituted through discourse; • Biological versus social as an interplay; • Children as social actors not outcomes of social processes (productive contributors to and active participants in decision-making.

What is ‘scientific evidence’? Ochs & Schieffelin,1984; LeVine et al 1994 Middle- class European, N.American Verbal inter- actions & individuality Child Dev DAP & play as separate fantasy world

Rationales for provision of ECD • In some Northern European countries, standard/ predictable publicly-subsidised systems; • In neo-liberal English-speaking world, less systematic, mainly private and targeted interventions for multi-problem families (US evidence from Perry HighScope, Abercedarian & OECD).

Conceptualisations of poverty & ECD • possible to achieve low child poverty through redistributive taxation (Northern Europe) • not US, UK & Australia (majority provision is private or most of the rest of the world) • English Sure Start children’s centre programme has been expensive and produced no significant outcomes for children.

Robust evidence on ECD? • Little acknowledgement of conclusions outside USA • ‘Gold standard’ for medical evidence is randomised controlled trail (RCT) • ECD thus seen as technological intervention like drugs trial • There is lively debate about aims & goals of ECD and appropriate outcomes to measure • Ideas about how children develop and learn, who should look after them and in what circumstances, goals of conduct & what constitutes a family, community or childhood varies greatly.

Knowledge Transfer on ECD • Assumption of policy-makers: targeted ECD interventions are appropriate/ effective means to address poverty • McGregor et al. (2007) in Lancet adopt universalistic approach to poverty alleviation through package of nutrition, stimulation & parenting programmes • Evans et al 2000 provide a definitive handbook and DAP • World Bank finance ECD as means of reducing poverty • Yet high-quality centre-based educare is scaled down to low-cost and home-based with expectations that outcomes will be similar • Much provision in DAC recipients, for instance, is private, geared to school readiness and open to those who can pay fees • Education itself may leave a lot to be desired and hence educational advantages of pre-school education very marginal.

Reviewed evidence on impact of ECD for World Bank, 2016 • Developmental ‘gaps’ (e.g.malnutrition) is costly • Strong evidence ECD has long- and short-term benefits (Engle et al., 2011) • Different types of ECD are complementary and make sense at different stages • Programmes enhancing early stimulation, plus nutrition lead to positive outcomes (meta-analysis of 21 studies) • Early stimulation takes many forms (no ‘one size fits all’) • Positive benefits of high-quality centre-based programme • Cash transfer to poorest enhances outcomes

Woodhead (1997) • Compared ‘quality’ ECD programmes across France, India, Colombia and Kenya • Produced a model for ‘contextually appropriate practice’ • Quality is judged on basis of what locally available • Criticised as legitimising poor service for poor communities • Usually the élite will have services that match the best in Europe.

Funds of knowledge, Moll et al., 2005) • ‘Studying human beings dynamically within their social circumstances in their full complexity’ • Investigating ‘hidden’ home and community resources of young children (gather data on origin, use and distribution of knowledge and skills in community, e.g. personal and labour history through ‘networks of exchange’) • Teachers abandoning traditional roles, to create networks and change their approach

Range of ECD initiatives for DAC recipients Myers (2000) points to general unreliability of ECD in the South but draws tentative conclusions: • Enrolment increasing worldwide • Increases generally small/marginal • Variation is huge • ECD us refers to enrolment from 4 years up for school preparation • Urban children more likely to be enrolled than rural • Parity between girls & boys as girls, may be excl. in parts of Nepal, India, Pakistan & some Middle Eastern and N African countries • Role of state and private sector varies widely.

Evaluation of ECD programmes Review of sub-Saharan Africa by Assoc’n. for Dev. Of Education in Africa [ADEA] concludes availability of data is poorer even than for primary and secondary so monitoring of quality is difficult Many ECD programmes supported by multi-lateral donors with evaluation by external consultants that report activities and justify them Sheer diversity of programmes renders evaluative efforts limited.

ECD interventions aimed at child poverty • Despite economic rhetoric of World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank not much evidence about efficacy in mitigating poverty • Efforts set against global inequality of war & epidemics, HIV/AIDS and civil war • A safe haven will not necessarily ensure long-term advantage.

Time-poor mothers • May work away or at least very long hours • Siblings care for younger siblings • NGOs develop women’s co-operatives, water and sanitation, informal schooling/crèche • Managers may offer safe play spaces, care and nutrition • Home-based initiatives that are donor & government funded.

Young Children with HIV/AIDS Epidemic invariably harder to diagnose, prevent, mitigate or treat under certain social conditions Children/elderly may be bread-winners Amount of adult time needed by children for survival Dependence on adult/community support and psycho-social and physical damage that may be experienced without it Stigma attached to children whose mothers died of HIV/AIDS Need to preserve records and ensure legal rights of young children.

Community support • Foster (1997) of Zimbabwe, communities at limits of ability to cope orphan/grandparent-led households chronically poor so practical help (with clothing, school fees) has to supplement self-help. • Biersteker (2003) of South Africa, paucity of initiatives focusing on young children.

Young children in situations of war & conflict • Refugee children mostly have lost social support networks and likely to be highly distressed, helpless & powerless. • They may have witnessed terrible events, deaths of close relations, be impoverished, live in poor living conditions and have poor nutrition. • Machel (2001) reviewing impact of war on children stressed effectiveness of psycho-social recovery programmes depends upon understanding/respect for local cultures/traditions. • Difficulty of working with refugee children is identifying what works (Lloyd, 2004). • Opportunities to play, friendships & social networks likely to enhance coping.

Conclusions • ECD initiatives are varied, making them difficult to catalogue or compare • ECD programmes frequently promoted as wider spectrum of activity for women • Considerable current emphasis in major donor initiatives on working with parents, encouraging stimulation some inspired by (mis) reading of research on brain development • Much of the evidence cited about efficacy on ECD drawn from very limited number of studies carried out in USA though US untypical of OECD [and non-OECD] countries and ranks poorly among them • In North, most OECD countries accept equitable access to state-supported, centre-based early childhood education and care is integral to education and social welfare systems and to women’s participation in workforce • Multilaterial organisations have tended to encourage ECD interventions that are low-cost, low quality and targeted, and arguably contribute to inequality.

Asian children in the English system • Pakistani children are well behind in achievement at age 11 years but make progress during secondary schooling and almost close the gap by 16 years (Strand, 2006) • Need to examine family values, cultural capital and ‘learning how to learn’ at home when linking home and school (submission: study, behave, stop playing) • Barrier to communication with schools if parents had little schooling (e.g. failed to learn to read and write Urdu or Arabic) and lack knowledge of school system • Family literacy practices (books, newspapers in the home) influence child/parents perception of ‘match’ with the school and ability to read aloud or help with home reading (incomplete records in the book bag may be interpreted as lack of interest ) (Brooker, 2002) • Confidence in parental duty to ‘instruct’ inculcate religious knowledge, alphabets, reading, writing, reciting and counting, evenings, weekends • Learning to be a primary-aged pupil is easier with pre-school experience • Need to take a/c of all aspects of child’s and family’s experience.

Funds of Knowledge Checklist (Moll et al., 2005) • How does your preschool link learning to families and communities? • Do you provide ongoing parent education and training so parents can help children? • How do teachers involve each family? • How is family language and culture used as a foundation for learning? • How do teachers tap into each child’s ‘funds of knowledge’?

Checklist cont. • Do we affirm children’s informal home language while linking them to Standard Urdu? • Do we know how to use informal language as a tool for developing literacy? • How well is our curriculum tailored to the needs, interests and learning styles of individual children? • How do we encourage and teach to the many intelligences and learning styles of children? • Do we encourage their dreams and aspirations and link to their learning?

ECD may provide practical relief that mitigates child poverty but should be carefully evaluated?

Fullan, 2001‘Learning in the setting where you work, or learning in context, is the learning with the greatest pay-off because it is more specific (customerized to the situation) and because it is social (involves the group)… Such learning changes the individual and the context simultaneously

Contact c.a. aubrey@warwick.ac.uk

Early child development care: policies in practice Professor Carol Aubrey