Publications

Access to early childhood education has increased over the last two decades, with global enrolment rates showing gender parity in access among boys and girls. Despite this gender parity in access, the pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle gender inequities and address harmful gender stereotypes while they are being absorbed by the youngest learners. As such, this research explores the ways in which pre-primary education can become more gender-transformative at a system level and presents 11 key strategies to support this goal. The strategies are organized around five interconnected action areas: planning and budgeting; curriculum; workforce development; family and community engagement; and quality assurance. These strategies can help governments and policymakers to proactively incorporate gender-responsiveness into the design and implementation of their pre-primary education policy and programming, following a system-wide perspective.

Access to pre-primary education has increased significantly in the past two decades and, as of today, boys and girls are participating equally. However, despite this gender parity in access, the pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle gender inequalities and address harmful gender stereotypes and norms. In particular, children begin to gain insight into certain cultural gender stereotypes as early as the ages of two and three. There is, therefore, a need to proactively incorporate gender-responsive and gender-transformative strategies into the design and implementation of pre-primary education systems to address gender inequalities. 

Children begin learning about gender stereotypes as early as age two. The pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle and address harmful gender stereotypes while they are being absorbed by the youngest learners. All components of the pre-primary system have a role to play in breaking down these stereotypes. This includes parents, who are the primary agents of gender socialization for their children. As young children are in the process of forming their own gender identity, their primary caregivers can reinforce their behaviors and act as role models on how to behave and interact with others. This brief highlights key strategies and considerations to ensure family and community members are active agents of change for gender-transformative education and development.

Gender-transformative pre-primary education requires a coherent system that integrates gender considerations across all its core components for a quality service delivery. This brief presents a set of tools to support policymakers and/or practitioners to progress towards gender-transformative pre-primary education policy and programming, organized by the five core components of quality pre-primary primary education systems: planning and budgeting; curriculum; workforce development; family and community engagement; and quality assurance. The tools provide key gender considerations to strengthen each core component and advocate for gender-responsive and gender-transformative policies and practices. 

Mainstreaming gender within pre-primary education is a priority in tackling gender-related inequalities from the early years. Such mainstreaming requires the commitment of a variety of stakeholders within the education system and beyond, including different units within education ministries, pre-service and in-service teacher training providers, teacher unions, other ministries, academia and civil society organizations. This brief presents key advocacy points and enabling conditions to support education ministries to engage these partners in the delivery of gender-transformative pre-primary education. Advocacy points are aligned with the five components of quality systems: planning and budgeting; curriculum development and implementation; workforce development; family and community engagement; and quality assurance.  

Children begin learning about gender stereotypes as early as age two. The pre-primary education system does not always deliver on its potential to tackle and address harmful gender stereotypes while they are being absorbed by the youngest learners. All components of the pre-primary system have a role to play in breaking down these stereotypes. This includes the teaching workforce, who play a crucial role in determining how the education system contributes to gender equality and whose actions can influence children’s learning experiences and their personal gendered views and behaviour. This brief highlights key strategies and considerations to ensure the pre-primary workforce can be prepared to stop gender stereotypes from being perpetuated, and ways they can create a learning environment that is gender-transformative.

Best of UNICEF Research showcases the most rigorous, innovative and impactful research produced by UNICEF offices worldwide. While evidence highlights emerging issues, it also informs decisions and provides policy and programme recommendations for governments and partners, to improve children's lives.

This year, Best of UNICEF Research celebrates its 10th edition. It features 12 research projects that the selection panel concurred deserved special recognition for delivering results for children in 2022. How? By informing decision-making, shaping policy, raising public awareness, driving social change, and giving children and young people a voice on the issues that affect them most through participatory research.

These endeavours showcase both the power of innovation in the face of emergency and crisis, and the virtues of agility, endurance and scalability. They also offer solutions and ways to learn from each other. Each piece of research offers a set of adaptable tools: validated methodologies; templates for emergency response plans; methods of monitoring and measuring progress; and examples of successful collaboration between stakeholders. 

 

Evidence and objective assessment are needed more than ever to help enhance the rights and well-being of the world’s children. Researching the changing world around us and evaluating progress are two sides of the same coin, both critical to reimagining a better future for children. In recognition of this, UNICEF celebrates and showcases innovative and influential research and evaluations from our offices around the world every year. For 2020, Innocenti and the Evaluation Office joined forces to find the most rigorous UNICEF studies with greatest influence on policies and programmes that benefit children.

This paper contributes longitudinal research evidence on these issues, notably: the impact of structural inequalities on children’s development within households and communities; the ways access to health, education and other key services may reduce or amplify inequalities; and especially evidence on the ways that children’s developmental trajectories diverge from early in life, through to early adulthood.

There is need for a holistic, comprehensive ECD monitoring system that covers the multiple facets (i.e. education, health, social protection and the social and economical context in which the child is born) of public and private ECD interventions in a country. Such a system is essential for ensuring that all children can reap the benefits of ECD. It serves as a means of support and oversight for monitoring the performance and planning of ECD policies and programmes in developing countries. The paper highlights the importance of comprehensive ECD monitoring for making evidence-based decisions, and discusses practical issues to take into consideration when developing such a system. One of the first steps is deciding what to monitor through the selection of a limited number of valid and measurable indicators that are aligned to policy and programme goals. In this respect the capacity of the government system should be thoroughly assessed, including 1) the identification and evaluation of existing administrative and other data sources; 2) a training needs analysis of the administrators who will operate the monitoring system to allow for strengthening their skills and prepare them for their future duties; and 3) consideration of the long-term costs of operating a monitoring system in relation to the (projected) available funds, in order to ensure the sustainability of the system.

Las investigaciones recogidas en cientos de estudios demuestran los beneficios que proporcionan la educación y los cuidados de calidad durante la primera infancia para el aprendizaje posterior del niño, su éxito escolar y su desarrollo social. Habiendo reconocido el valor de ofrecer oportunidades educativas al niño desde los primeros momentos de su vida, muchos países han extendido la educación y los cuidados a la primera infancia durante los últimos años. México consituye un caso interesante, en el que durante los últimos cinco años se han extendido la educación y los cuidados a la primera infancia, así como las iniciativas encaminadas a mejorar la calidad y a reformar el currículo nacional de los preescolares. Este documento examina tres iniciativas de política educativa que se llevaron a cabo en México entre 2000 y 2006: la expansión de la educación preescolar, la mejora de la calidad y la reforma curricular.

The aim of this publication is to provide a review of the literature and current policies of early childhood education and care in the economically most advanced countries of the world. The introductory chapter provides some basic definitions: what is meant by 'early childhood services' both in the narrow sense of care and education services for young children (family day care, childcare centres, pre-primary educational services, integrated services, etc.) and in the wider sense of services supporting the holistic development of young children. Subsequent chapters address: the rights and well-being of young children; the economic and social context of children's services; state investment in early childhood services. Chapter 2 addresses the question of the rights and well-being of young children. Chapter 3 explores the economic and social context of children's services, and seek to explain the contemporary focus on the upbringing and education of young children. Chapter 4 provides a rationale for substantial state investment in early childhood services. Chapter 5 recalls briefly the promise that participation in high-quality early childhood services holds for the individual child and at a wider level, for society as a whole. A short conclusion proposes a dynamic social market model that brings together the dynamism and choice that market approaches can present with the strong investment, effective control and equity in access that public systems have traditionally offered in several countries.