Early childhood policies in low- and middle-income countries

This special issue focuses on early childhood policies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where most of the world’s children reside. Despite evidence from a range of contexts of the importance of quality early interventions for young children’s healthy development and learning (Rao et al. 2014; Britto et al. 2016), it is estimated that 43 percent of children under age 5 in LMICs are at risk of not meeting their full developmental potential due to factors such as poverty, malnutrition, and inadequate stimulation in the home (Black et al. 2016). Realizing the promise of early childhood development (ECD) requires well-designed, adequately funded, and contextually appropriate policies for young children and the engagement of diverse actors and sectors (e.g., education, health, nutrition, child protection, and social welfare). However, early childhood policy development in LMICs is an emerging area of government responsibility and scholarship. Given the varying local resources and capacity, the diversity within and across regions, and the unique constraints faced by policymakers in LMICs, the country case studies and comparative analyses in this special issue make important contributions to the international knowledge base.

The topic of this special issue is particularly timely due to the unprecedented attention to the early years around the world, which brings with it the question of how to translate this global momentum into impactful policies and services for young children. The adoption, in 2015, of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 193 world leaders recognized the importance of early childhood development to eradicating poverty and hunger, promoting good health and quality education as well as for peace, justice and strong institutions. ECD now features prominently on the global development agenda, especially in Target 4.2, which seeks to ensure that ‘by 2030 all nations will provide access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that all girls and boys are well prepared when they enter primary education’ (United Nations 2015, 19). Reaching this target will not be easy. According to UNICEF (2019), at the current rate of progress, more than half of low- and lower-middle-income countries will not achieve universal pre-primary education by 2030.

Global momentum has also been provided by the Nurturing Care Framework, launched during the 71^st World Health Assembly in 2018. Developed by the WHO, UNICEF and the World Bank, in collaboration with many partners, the framework calls for governments and other stakeholders to invest in the early years and highlights the importance of cross sector collaboration and building upon health systems to support the holistic development of young children (World Health Organization 2018). The convergence of several global efforts – including a new G20 initiative – has galvanized a wide range of stakeholders to come together to support a global Early Childhood Action Network (ECDAN) to catalyze action for young children.

At the continental and regional levels, too, there is greater awareness of the importance of investing in the early years. Recently, the African Union (AU) – a continental union of 55 member states – recognized that while pre-primary education is the pillar on which future learning and training is grounded, it continues to be a neglected area in terms of policy and investment. In 2018, the AU created the Early Childhood Education and Development Cluster to support progress towards the achievement of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa and the African Union Agenda 2063 (African Union 2018). Regional early childhood networks of practitioners, civil society organizations, and government officials have also been critical in strengthening collaborative action. These include the Africa Early Childhood Network (AfECN), Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), International Step by Step Association (ISSA) and the Arab Network for Early Childhood Development (ANECD). These regional early childhood networks have played a key role in strengthening partnerships, advocating for the early years and amplifying the voice of practitioners in the field.

The articles in this special issue focus on national early childhood policy developments, which shape and are shaped by these global and regional frameworks. Across LMICs, there has been a burgeoning of early childhood policies, laws and regulations, training programmes, curriculum, standards, and guidelines (Vargas-Barón 2015). While government involvement varies across countries, there is a trend to ensure that early learning programmes are part of basic education; about 50 countries have made at least one year of pre-primary education compulsory. Despite this progress, in low-income countries, only about 20 percent of children are enrolled in pre-primary education compared to more than 80 percent in high-income countries (UNICEF 2019). Across 64 countries, children from low-income households are seven times less likely to participate in early childhood education than those from higher-income households (UNICEF 2019). Moreover, the rapid expansion of early childhood education has raised concerns about the quality of provision in many countries (Woodhead et al. 2009) due to inadequate infrastructure, materials, teacher training and support (Mitter and Putcha 2018; Neuman, Josephson, and Chua 2015).

Despite global, regional, and national imperatives to scale up services, policymakers in LMICs struggle with major implementation challenges including: limited human resources; inadequate funding; high rates of private provision; decentralized governance; and lack of coordination across sectors (Bidwell and Watine 2014; Britto et al. 2014; Samman et al. 2016). The articles in this special issue address key policy questions: given that most children in LMICs still do not participate in pre-primary education, what are the barriers to scaling up services? What are effective strategies for improving quality? How do global policy frameworks influence national developments? What are public perceptions of early childhood and ECD policies? How can advocacy for policy development and implementation be strengthened? How can policy and governance ensure more equitable early childhood systems?

The first three articles focus on the challenge of expanding early childhood education without compromising quality or equity. In the first paper, Elizabeth Spier, Frederik Leenknecht, Kaitlin Carlson, Krystal Bichay and Ann-Marie Faria review the obstacles to providing universal access to quality pre-primary education in LMICs, with a focus on West Africa, the Middle East, and Southern and Eastern Asia. They discuss how many countries are under pressure to rapidly expand early childhood education and caution that the solution of adding a class to existing primary schools can lead to a downward extension of poor quality and under-resourced schooling for younger children. They find limited examples of what works at scale. The authors discuss four inter-related requirements for scaling up quality pre-primary education in LMICs: a shared vision of quality and motivation to provide it for all children; a qualified and motivated workforce; appropriate infrastructure with adequate teaching and learning resources; and stable and flexible financing.

In the second article, Caroline Dusabe, Lauren Pisani, Monique Abimpaye and Catherine Honeyman analyze opportunities and gaps for early childhood education in Rwanda after the government’s decision to implement one year of pre-primary education using the basic education infrastructure. The paper provides lessons for how civil society can conduct and use research to inform policy. A political economy analysis, impact evaluation evidence, and implementation experience from Save the Children’s Emergent Literacy and Maths Initiative helped identify important areas for government attention, including the need to support children’s home early learning environments and to address quality issues (e.g., school leadership, play and learning materials, adequate space, and teacher training and incentives) in the national roll out of pre-primary education. As part of a civil society coalition, Save the Children used data from these applied research studies to inform an advocacy strategy and influence policy around improving teacher compensation and training.

In the third paper, Donald Baum, Jimmy Hernandez and Ariah Orchard explore how global policies have shaped the national education agenda in Tanzania, finding persistent inequities in access and learning outcomes for both early childhood and basic education. The expansion of basic education between 1996 and 2015 improved girls’ participation but deepened educational inequality for children living in rural areas, from lower-income households, and with disabilities. To date, early childhood education has followed similar patterns. Despite a policy of one year of compulsory free pre-primary education since 2014, urban and wealthier children are far more likely to be enrolled. Consistent with these quantitative findings, a critical discourse analysis of global and national policies revealed that most documents prioritize addressing educational inequalities but lack clear targets or strategies for reaching underserved populations, with the exception of girls. One policy lesson is that to reduce disparities, education policies targeted toward specific at-risk groups are needed, beginning with the youngest learners.

The fourth article extends beyond the education system to consider the tensions between quality and equity of access in a range of interventions across sectors. Although many countries have developed comprehensive ECD policies, they often do not have the financial or human resources to implement all services simultaneously. Chris Desmond, André Viviers, Taygen Edwards, Kate Rich, Patricia Martin and Linda Richter highlight the importance of prioritization in light of limited finance and capacity, based on the experience of developing the South African National Integrated Early Childhood Development Policy of 2015. The paper examines the international evidence, budget implications, short- and longer-term and benefits, and logistical enablers and constraints of rolling out the four largest components of the policy: interventions during pregnancy; home visits for at-risk mothers; play groups; and ECD centers. The authors discuss options for sequencing the implementation of interventions and the trade-offs involved, emphasizing the role of value judgments in the policy prioritization process.

The next two articles focus on public perceptions and early childhood policy. Linda Richter, Mark Tomlinson, Kathryn Watt, Xanthe Hunt and Eric Lindland use anthropological methods to investigate the knowledge and attitudinal barriers that hinder the full-scale roll out of services for the youngest children and their families in South Africa. They identify shared understandings of ECD among members of the public, stakeholders and implementing organizations as well as differing beliefs regarding children’s rights, discipline, and the appropriate focus of government interventions. A key finding is that study participants tended to ‘age up’ by attributing skills and development to the preschool years and focusing less on the foundational first 1,000 days of life. The authors recommend that communication strategies build on shared understandings and target identified gaps in order to increase public and political support for investing in ECD.

Joyce Bronteng, Ilene Berson and Michael Berson explore public reactions to the National Literacy Acceleration Programme (NALAP), a mother tongue-based bilingual medium of instruction policy for early childhood education in Ghana. Based on an analysis of op-eds and interviews with parents and education officers, the study found strong negative views toward NALAP and a preference for English-only as the medium of instruction, as well as inadequate information about the policy and its educational benefits. Interviewees identified implementation barriers including a lack of teacher training, minimal monitoring, and insufficient teaching and learning resources in Ghanaian languages. The authors argue that to fully implement and sustain NALAP, support from both the general public and parents is essential. They recommend public advocacy campaigns with extensive community outreach as well as a focus on training teachers and education officers and developing materials in local languages.

As in other parts of the world, many LMICs have decentralized education and other public services to increase economic efficiency as well as local decision-making, participation, and accountability. In the last paper, Liliana Angelica Ponguta, Carlos Aggio, Kathryn Moore, Elisa Hartwig, Bosun Jang, Jelena Markovic, Leyla Hasanova, Joanne Bosworth and Deepa Grover analyze the challenges and opportunities that decentralized governance has brought to early childhood education in four countries in Europe and Central Asia (Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, and Serbia). Looking at both formal policies and on the ground practices, the qualitative study raises concerns about the contributions of decentralization to inequities related to: limited local participation in policy making that often remains centralized; uneven quality assurance and fundraising based on differing capacities at sub national level; and weak co-ordination across sectors at different levels of government. The study also highlights opportunities presented by decentralization including greater responsiveness to local needs and planning that is more contextualized.

Taken together, these articles expand our understanding of early childhood policy formulation and implementation in diverse country contexts and provide guidance for countries that are looking to answer questions about equity, quality and access. In designing and implementing legislation, policymakers should ensure that they conduct consultations to understand the perspectives of various stakeholders, about prioritization and reflection on the best approach to implementation, and about the effects of the policy. The studies further point to the need to adopt a universal programme approach but with specific focus on improving quality and access for marginalized populations. These are important considerations as countries around the world seek to harness the growing political and public support for strengthening early development and learning opportunities for all children.

Two further papers which were submitted for this special issue will be included in the next issue of Early Years (39,4 December 2019).