Early Years Education

It has been some awesome weeks of learning about issues and trends in Early Childhood Education from different parts of the world. It has been great value for time, thanks to the content provided by the various websites in form of podcasts, researches and reports as well as insightful discussions from colleagues.  Three things stand out for me  1.The Issues and Trends in early childhood education are global issues, though they may be more escalated in some continents than others. For example, we are all dealing with childhood poverty however some countries have these issues with poverty on a higher rate than others. We all have to work together to help eradicated childhood poverty using innovative solutions that are workable in that country. Reading through several websites, I can adapt various innovative solutions to our peculiar situation in Nigeria. 2.The Various Stakeholders working in Early Childhood Education all have a vital role to play, Education...

Early Childhood Education in Nigeria is just gaining a bit of attention thanks to the private sector, majorly by business owners who have seen the opportunity to provide care and education for the very young Children. Assessing Quality of Education has been very challenging as Government hasn’given attention to early childhood education . Hence, a new private childcare center popularly known as ‘'crèche’’ springs up daily. In the time past, I have been more concerned about the quality that these private centers provide but now I am grateful to them that at least they provide access to education and are filling the gap where government has failed. Teacher Training and Continuous Professional Development seems to be one of the main drivers for improving quality of Early Childhood Education. I reckon that if we can improve the quality of teachers then it can at least provide some form of quality content where  structure and administration is failing. There are several training ...

This week, I look further into the website of the Global Fund for Children     https://globalfundforchildren.org  , i come across a link  https://globalfundforchildren.org/our-partners/where-we-work/africa-the-middle-east/  that discusses about Global fund for children's work in Nigeria. YES! Nigeria my beloved Country. The Global Fund for Children partner with the Child and Youth Protection Foundation (CYPF) in Abuja Nigeria to work with young children especially girls who work as domestic servants, predominantly girls who are trafficked from rural areas and are denied an education and are particularly at risk of experiencing sexual violence and abuse. For these girls quality care and education remains unattainable as they experience various barriers and experience difficulty in accessing quality programs but for the intervention of CYPF. CYPF's Strategy involves a combination of formal education and counselling with an after school tutori...

This week has been an awesome time listening to podcasts and reading through websites and gaining new insights on issues and trends in Early Childhood Education. I will like to share some with you here. Listening to Delila Vasquez, the Director of program services Los Angeles Universal preschool, I learnt that Solving the gaps and issues that face children is a collective effort and most especially for early childhood professionals it involves a commitment to supporting the best interest of the child. It involves Sacrifices and the ability to articulate the needs of children. "We need not try to FIX them but we need to work with them, get to know them, build relationships with them and most importantly do what is right for them'' she says (Laureate University, 2011). Reading through the Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child, ( http://developingchild.harvard.edu/about/what-we-do/global-work/ ) these things stand out: ·      ...

Going through these several websites-   The World forum Radio- http://www.viaway.com/category/2691-21490/world-forum-radio , The Global fund for Children( https://globalfundforchildren.org/ ) and UNICEF website (https://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/index_45357.html) the past few weeks has made me see that the issues , trends and challenges of early childhood education are the same all over the world but may appear in diverse context. The issues of poverty are not geographical in nature and its consequences affect children all over the world. These websites have provided deeper insights to diverse ways by which we can intervene and provide innovative and local solutions to the issues and challenges that affect young children. I like the quote found on the website of the Global fund for children which says “Behind all the numbers, dollars invested, countries reached, growth achieved –is what really matters: the children and communities we serve”. The Collective effort ...