UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage

This week I reviewed the UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/), The three insights I have gained include:

 1.  The country ECE profiles that are part of this site provide valuable information about ECE as it exists in other countries.  I have found in reviewing the information that other countries are struggling with the same issues of equity, affordability, quality and access.  I look forward to reading more of these and learning about my counterparts in other countries.

2.  The international resources from books to videos are also another source of imformation.  The video of the early childhood programme for the nomadic Loipi of northern Kenya was very interesting and to me reinforced my belief in focusing on the whole child- from nutrition to socialization- as part of early childhood education. 

3.  In addition,  the policy briefs are very informative.  Upon reviewing the brief "Preschool Class for 6-year olds in Sweden: A Bridge between Early Childhood and Compulsory School", I found it interesting that lowering the entry age of children for school was a concern in Sweden because of their view of childhood as "a golden time of life" and that lowering the entry age would take away a part of childhood.  This echos my own concern that a focus on academic standards in the United States could lead our early educators to use practices that might take away from our children "being kids".

After reviewing this website I plan on adding it to my list of resources to use and refer to.