Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3

Because I have not yet received a response from my international contacts, I visited UNESCO’s “Early Childhood Care and Education” webpage (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/). 

Some of the insights I gained about issues related to international early childhood education that relate to my professional goals have to do with inequity of funding and program access, quality of curriculum, and parent education.

The inequity of funding and program access across countries reminded me of how the funding in the United States works. Federal block grants are available to states, but each state sets its own budget and criteria for early childhood services. While the federal government provides funding for Head start, it is still up to the local agencies to apply and allocate funds. This relates to my goal to become a stronger advocate for children and Early Childhood programs by working with policy-makers to ensure quality preschool programs are available and sustained. 

Another issue that relates to this goal is the push for universal preschool. When reading about the new Early Childhood Development center initiative in Gambia and the idea of universalizing school for 6 year olds, I was thinking about the current push in the US for universal preschool. Gambia decided to not universalize because of issues of sustainability. While I believe that access to preschool should be a right for all children, the question of how to sustain such an endeavor in the US has to be addressed. 

The centers in Gambia were going to be located within primary schools. There was some concern that they will be pre-primary education, focusing on preparing children for formal schooling, rather than child development. This topic too relates to my goal of becoming a stronger advocate for children. The program I teach at is also located within an elementary school and through the years there has been pressure to be more academically focused in order to prepare the children for Kindergarten. Thankfully, I have the support of our Early Childhood Specialist to back up what I am doing in the classroom.

Finally, one of my revised professional goals is to be a better parent educator. In the publications section of UNESCO’s website I found materials on parenting education workshops that I could easily ‘tweak’ and use with my parents.