Play-based early childhood Interventions: Transformative pathways to equitable and inclusive ECCE

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The early years of life are the most critical period of brain development where the foundation for lifelong health and wellbeing are laid. Deprivation in these early years, therefore, has lasting implications. The figures of early childhood paint a staggering picture of the challenges faced in ensuring equitable and inclusive access to high-quality care and education. Of the 2.4 billion children globally, 657 million are under the age of five. Of these young children, more than 71 million have spent the entirety of their lives in conflict-affected areas. Moreover, approximately one in ten children globally have a disability; however, children with disabilities are 25 percent less likely to attend early childhood education programs. Lastly, more than 175 million children are not enrolled in formal pre-primary education, a critical component of early childhood development. When addressing these challenges, preventive intervention is more efficient and produces more favorable outcomes than later remediation. The early years offer an opportune moment for action as the brain is more flexible and capable of change than in any other period of life. Play-based interventions have the potential to address the holistic needs of young children and can be used across contexts with children facing multiple and interlinked vulnerabilities. The benefits of play are manifold. Play promotes cognitive, physical, social, and emotional skills, fostering wellbeing and building complex abilities in children, including resilience, creativity, and self-advocacy. Play provides children with diverse opportunities for skill development, including effective communication and negotiation, learning from trial and error, using scientific concepts to real-life situations, and deriving fulfilment and pride from personal and group achievements.

In this panel we will explore four distinct play-based ECCE interventions. The Play to Learn project, funded by USAID and implemented by Cambridge Education, aims to enhance early childhood education in Djibouti through play-based learning by addressing various obstacles that hinder the equitable and inclusive access to preschool education. The session will present the approaches for managing the diverse needs of pre-primary education, share lessons learned, and highlight persistent challenges to be addressed in improving preschool education in Djibouti. From Three Stones International, the GREAT-ECE project aims to assess the scalability and effectiveness of gender-responsive and play-based learning approaches in early childhood education in Rwanda and Mozambique. The research findings will contribute to the development of a scalability strategy, co-created with government stakeholders, to ensure the wider adoption of these approaches. The Early Childhood Development and Education in Emergencies project, a partnership between Save the Children, USAID, and the LEGO Foundation seeks to provide play-based early childhood education programs that are responsive and adaptive to the complex and ever-changing crisis contexts in Ethiopia. It also aims to integrate adult literacy in parenting education sessions to improve participation in regions where parents are illiterate. Sesame Workshop's evaluation examines the impact of their Watch Play Learn video intervention on Venezuelan and Colombian children's math and socio-emotional skills. The randomized controlled trial included Venezuelan migrants, refugees, and Colombian nationals affected by the refugee crisis in Colombia. The analysis compares developmental progress and explores effects based on child and caregiver characteristics. The presentation shares results and implications for early learning initiatives using mass media and mobile delivery. Following these discussions, we will reflect on themes that unite the four projects on the transformative power of play and identify what lessons can be taken to move the needle on the state of early childhood development worldwide.

Sub Unit

• Early Childhood Development SIG

Chair

• Ilse Flink, Three Stones International

Individual Presentations

• An impact evaluation of sesame workshop’s Watch Play Learn videos on Venezuelan and Colombian children’s math and socio-emotional skills - Emily Franchett, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Priyamvada Tiwari, NYU Global TIES for Children; Dennis Hilgendorf, Global TIES for Children, New York University; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Global TIES for Children, New York University; Kate Schwartz, Global TIES for Children, New York University; Kimberly E Foulds, Sesame Workshop; Mariona Tres, Innovations For Poverty Action

• Promoting gender-responsive and play-based learning in early childhood education: Insights from the GREAT-ECE pilot project in Rwanda and Mozambique - Ilse Flink, Three Stones International

• Inception phase and lessons learned from Ethiopia on early childhood development and education in emergencies: A play-based approach - Alex Alubisia, Save the Children

• Play to Learn: Advancing equitable access to pre-primary education in Djibouti - Romain Babagbeto, Mott Macdonald, Inc.

Discussant

• Amy Jo Dowd, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania