Highlighted Session: On the Way to Scale and Sustainability: Opportunities and challenges in ECD policy and programming

Session Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Description of Session

This panel brings together papers that address a range of issues in early childhood development (ECD) policy, with a focus on diverse stakeholders involved in ECD service delivery across several national contexts. As nations across the globe increasingly invest in ECD, it is critical to understand the effects of ECD policies and programs and the opportunities they present for sustainability and going to scale. The papers in this session take up this charge from a variety of perspectives, and each focuses on a different level of policy and program implementation, from systems to individual families. Together, these papers address many of the challenges facing the expansion of ECD – the need for strong systems and governance, tensions between global notions of best practice and local policy, support and capacity building in the ECD workforce, and access to ECD services.

The session will include four 15-minute presentations. A prominent ECD practitioner with policy experience will serve as discussant, providing a 10-minute discussion following the presentations. 20 minutes will be reserved for questions from the audience. The papers and discussion during this panel will be of interest to researchers and practitioners with varied interests in ECD and policy, and will provide a forum for rich discussion related to ECD policy and programming.

Paper 1 takes a systems-level view of ECD policy, with a focus on identifying the policy and governance structures that support best practice for addressing children’s needs across the life cycle. This paper emphasizes the need for multi-sectoral coordination to address gaps in services for children age 2-6. Paper 2 examines the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in supporting student learning at pre-primary and early primary levels, in the context of a Tanzanian reform effort focused on improving literacy and numeracy outcomes. The authors address how CBOs navigate the tension of adhering to national policy initiatives that promote academic learning while attempting to incorporate play-based and developmentally appropriate methods. Paper 3 examines the experiences of students in Tanzania’s new pre-primary (PPE) diploma program. Through a presentation of portraits of three PPE diploma students, set against a backdrop of larger ECE policy initiatives, the paper demonstrates the importance of incorporating contextually-grounded understanding of teacher experience into broader ECD policy and reform initiatives. Paper 4 extends this focus on the ECD workforce, providing insight into the training, support systems, and working conditions required to sustain early childhood workers. This study of the barriers facing the early childhood workforce in a new national ECD program in Peru that provides home visiting services to children under 3 living in poverty. The challenges of identifying, recruiting, and retaining a qualified workforce have implications for program quality, and result in recommendations for the scale-up of the program.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Early Childhood Development

Individual Presentations

• Platforms to reach children in early childhood - Katherine Anne Merseth, RTI International

• Implement, counteract, or advocate for change? How community-based organizations navigate the education policy context to support holistic ECD in Tanzania - Sadaf Shallwani, Firelight Foundation; Amina Abubakar, Pwani University, Kilifi, Kenya

• Pre-primary teachers as critical actors in Tanzania’s early childhood agenda - Bethany Wilinski, Michigan State University

• Supporting and retaining a cadre of quality home visitors in poor communities of Peru - Kimberly Josephson, Results for Development Institute