Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 3  

I have not received a reply from my international contact, so I decided to go to the Early Childhood Care and Education webpage and share three new ideas I gained about issues related to international early childhood education that relates to my professional goals.

1.  Many programs for high quality childcare offer children from underprivileged backgrounds, promotes inspiration, self-assurance, good cognitive and linguistic development and school readiness.  It was stated that we need to always include useful factors to consider such as parental education and family involvement, focusing on quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate.  This workforce is made up of a various group of pre-school teachers, care workers, and other professionals in the early childhood field.  What plays an important role in a child’s education is being able to have active parents and community involvement.  There should be ample training and work conditions so they can assimilate the content and practice of early childhood education.  All schools have been known for regular inspection and follow-up of the service setting, along with adequate health and nutrition components.  Some government resources cause efforts to lower the entry age for child to attend school.  Many pre-school children do have the funds for their education and therefore ways should be consider in improving the school settings. 

2.  Development goals and vision in education is a country’s education policy and its starting point is to realize the contribution to the achievement of the goals.  In order to create a high-quality curriculum for young children there must be goals, establish priorities, planning ahead and finally evaluating the process. The education sector is facilitated by two Analytical Tools required in the participation of all key stakeholders (Finance, Development, and Planning).

The Tools help to analyze the following broad issues:

Analytical Tool on Relevance: Country level relevance; Labour market and world of work responsiveness; Global level relevance; Individual level responsiveness; Internal system coherence

Analytical Tool on Equity and Inclusion: Understanding inequity and exclusion; Policies and strategies to address inequity and exclusion

3.  Access and Equity

Learning begins at birth stated by the 1990 Jomtien Declaration of Education for All.  Many participating countries committed themselves “expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.”  Expanding equitable access to early childhood services underscoring the importance of instituting policy for the poor.   Many countries promote services for children living in poverty that have limited access to early childhood services, but concerns arise about the quality.  A pro-poor policy can rearrange funds by reducing state support, even though central governments make sure an equitable distribution of funds among the disadvantaged regions.  It aims to increase access without creating serious regional inequities.

Central governments must ensure an equitable distribution of resources for early childhood education among different populations and especially those who live in the most disadvantaged regions. This approach aims to expand access without creating serious regional inequities. However, there is universal provision for a certain age group, while the overall enrollment in other age groups is low, this strategy can create inequity.  Furthermore, many unfortunate children of non-target ages receive government attention and targeting can decline where government plan for universal access.

                 Reference:

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood  

                                    Sharing Web Resources

After exploring the Ikamva Labantu website I came across the organization's programs that focused on three main areas - community health; community learning and development; and community resources. They are interlinked to ensure that community leaders, teachers, parents, caregivers and families are empowered to find and implement answers, with resources and guidance where required, enabling them to accomplish independent and satisfied  lives for themselves, and for those whom they help and care for.

            Researching further,  it was at the Clinton Global Initiative 2011, Ikamva Labantu, one of South Africa's longest-standing social development organizations, stated that it will be introducing a Health and Wellness Center and an Early Childhood Development Training & Resource Center in the Khayelitsha by the end of 2011, located at the township outside Cape Town. These two centers will employ an exceptionally interlinked approach to the improvement of health and education in the township areas of Cape Town, providing the support and resources they need for thousands of vulnerable members of these communities. This program should touch and improve the lives of orphaned children, impoverished children, youth at risk and vulnerable senior citizens.
 

The Early Childhood Development, Training, and Resource Center provide services sole to South Africa's township communities, serving as a best practice model for practical learning. The center aims to allow community caregivers through the creation of a holistic learning environment, which will incorporate a school, as well as an on-site training facility and parent center. It’s been through realistic and experiential training within the school setting, community educators and parents will be better equipped to provide supervision and education to children placed in their care.

 

Adding that there will be a Health and Wellness Center that will act as an all-encompassing preventative health care destination, promoting and educating caregivers and their beneficiaries about health-conscious behavior, disease prevention and the vital role of nutrition. This center will serve as a prototype for community health promotion, education, awareness and preventative health, capable of being replicated in other parts of the country.

                                                   Reference:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ikamva-labantu-commits-to-south-african-health-and-education-development-as-part-of-cgi-2011-130839878.html  

          Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

This week my professional contact organization is Ikamva Labantu of South Africa, which Tamalin Harper is my professional contact.  I did receive a couple of emails from her, but has not received a response from my latest email.  So I will be sharing some of her input and some of my thoughts about this organization.

Ikamva Labantu is now one of South Africa’s largest and most respected organizations in Africa. Today, they employ more than 100 people and care for around 25,000 children and adults every day through our network of thousands of community careers.

Ikamva Labantu’s Vision:

Every human being has the right to a dignified life.

Ikamva Labantu’s Mission:

Enable communities to be self-reliant because they have hope, information, support and resources. 

Tamalin’s greatest challenge:

She shared that many of the schools located is South Africa are overcrowded and has no money for many extracurricular activities.  Many of the township children are barely passing the achievement tests, because of the high rate of drugs and alcohol increase.  She feels that many of the children will be failing in school or either standing around on the streets.

 Tamalin’s hope for Ikamva Labantu:

It is her hope for loving and fostering environments through mentorship, social support and life skills coaching in the early childhood area.  Even though they partnership with local youth programs and some offers after-school activities and sports involvement.

Ikamva Labantu Values:

Community owned and driven: Their work is always driven and owned by actively involved community members.

Dedicated people: They work with focused, selfless and cause-driven people who show tireless dedication to addressing community needs.

Adaptable and responsive to need: As thought leaders they recognize that community needs evolve and change and therefore our responses are flexible, forward-thinking and supportive.

Self-sufficiency: They support the entrepreneurial spirit that drives community action to self-sufficiency.

Collaboration: They believe in the power of collaboration by connecting people and building their capacity.

Personal Note:

She also shared with me that they are compromised by poverty and has a high rate of unemployment in the society.  This affects many of our children that are trying to make a future for them, she stated.  She wants to provide a loving and caring family environment and sustain community safety nets that affect their social development. Tamalin believes children should be offer an opportunity to excel in school, but due to the lack of resources many has been turned away.

The voice of the caregivers, known as community representatives gather monthly at the Ikamva Labantu Community Forum and voice their challenges that the community faces, share their insights and try to find solutions too many of the community awareness.  This forum plays a critical role in the Ikamva Labantu organization, ensuring that the community is successfully addressing those needs.

                           Sharing Web Resources:  Week 4

This week I decided to continue to explore the International Tipa Tipa/Step by Step website and review one particular resource.  This page is reflected in a complex and multi-purpose Quality Resource pack.  It is developed by experts in the International Step by Step Association network with help also  from the international experts in Early Childhood Development.  This pack addresses the needs of early childhood education systems to develop a quality framework for early childhood practices for assessing, mentoring, and improving children education.

In a growing numbers of countries there is a growing issue about the quality of services and learning environments for children.  It has been known that the  access is not accomplished by quality, it is no longer considered sufficient, nor supported by motivation.

                         Comprehensive Resource Pack on Quality Pedagogy:

• serve better the children and their families by increasing the quality of the services
• support practitioners - preschool, and primary school educators - to improve their everyday performance through the principles of learner-centered, interactive pedagogy, development of life-long learning skills, self-reflection and cooperation with colleagues/peers, families and communities
• prove and advocate for the complexity of the early childhood profession
• inform different stakeholders about the need for quality and engage them in dialogue about quality so that better systems are put in place (ISSA, 2012).

From reviewing this list of resource, I could see how the Quality Resource Pack can be used individually and in combination with the other resources.  It provides an opportunity to a wide range of target audience such as: educators, parents, policy makers, and communities. Obviously this framework can be used in different ways to engage in a dialogue about quality pathways around quality improvement.  I understand why individuals and institutions share an understanding of what quality means and how it can be improved.  Every child deserves a chance, that’s why we need to have a voice, a voice to be heard.

                                                      Reference:

International Step by Step Association (2012). Retrieved from http://issa.nl/network/haiti.haiti.html