International Early Childhood Issues Week 7 UNESCO

The three insights that I have gained from viewing the UNESCO’s website in Week 6 is:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·         <!--[endif]-->UNESCO’s Quality childcare programs

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·         <!--[endif]-->UNESCO and Access and Equity

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·         <!--[endif]-->UNESCO’s Education in the 21^st Century

The UNESCO’s high quality childcare programs especially for the kids in the low-income households and the families that are at various disadvantages promote cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness (http://www.unesco.org).  Active involvement from parents and communities and relevant play and learning materials ensure that early childhood services remain relevant to the needs of the children and all other stakeholders and increases sustainability (http://www.unesco.org).  This statement ties back to one of my goals which is to instill in parents the importance of parental involvement.  Parental involvement is vitally important to the development of children in childcare programs.  Building positive relationships with the students as well as the parents is very important.  UNESCO is dedicated to promoting quality childcare programs.

In dealing with Access and Equity some countries have made a commitment to expand and improve early childhood care and education.  This is especially true for low-income and disadvantaged children. The government was urged to expand equitable access to quality early childhood services underscoring the importance of instituting policy in favor of the poor (http://www.unesco.org).  Alternative services are usually promoted to the poor children with limited or no access to mainstream the early childhood services.  This often raises concerns about sustainability and quality.  In some cases the government may have limited resources so they use what is called a pro-poor policy that allow them to redistribute some of the resources by reducing the state support for the more privileged children http://www.unesco.org). According to this article the government must ensure equitable distribution of resources among the different populations especially those who are in the disadvantaged regions.  Vulnerable children need equal access.
UNESCO’S mission to educate is one of its principal activities to achieve.  They are committed to a holistic and humanistic vision of quality education worldwide.  The objectives are to support the achievement for all (EFA) to provide global and regional leadership in education, to strengthen education systems worldwide for early childhood to the adult years (http://www.unesco.org).  They focus on increasing access and equity as well as improving quality.  They work with the governments and a wide range of partners to make education systems more effective through policy change (http://www.unesco.org).

Reference

All Information retrieved from http://www.unesco.org