1. Eva Jespersen ejespersen@unicef.org 14 October 2008
Towards quality ECEC services in Europe for all
Key messages from UNICEF IRC work and their implications for policy
Eva Jespersen 14 October 2008

2. Young Children have Rights
CRC Article 5: Parental guidance and child’s evolving capacities
Article 6 and 24: The right to life, survival and development; health and health services
Article 18: … both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. … States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents .. in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children.
Article 27: Right to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development … role of parents, support by the state
Articles 28 and 29: Right to and aim of education
Article 31: Right to leisure, play, participation in cultural and artistic activities
CRC General Comment No. 7 is about early childhood – calling on State Parties to understand issues of early childhood better

4. First year: one on one care crucial
Neuroscience evidence: first year spent with a loving adult for best physical, cognitive, mental development
Exclusive breast feeding for 6 months
No Europe wide data on exclusive breast-feeding is available
Shonkoff: excessive levels of stress hormones in infancy “disrupt brain architecture”
Support to parenting; pre-natal and post natal
Learning about risk of shaking baby syndrome, exposure to domestic violence
Inclusion of vulnerable families (in Norway, refugees informed within a short period of arrival of importance of ECEC programmes, and legislation on violence in the home)
Case for partially compensated full year parental leave including weeks for dads
First generation of pri-primary school children where most kids will spend much of their waking and sleeping hours in by others

5. Effective Parental Leave
18 weeks
EC proposal New Directive: 18 weeks leave at 100% or at least sick pay.
Source: Bennett (2008) Early Childhood Services In OECD Countries, Innocenti Working Paper , UNICEF IRC, Florence.

6. The child care gap

7. Access 0-3
Growing number of infants and toddlers in care of ‘others’. Still there are great variances
A child in Denmark has about a 30 times greater change of attending childcare than a child in Poland
Belgium data shows low income and minorities more likely not to use services
In the UK and US a majority of children under the age of one year are now in some form of childcare for a substantial portion of each working day.
In Finland, Norway and Sweden infant care is a rarity.
In Sweden 20 years ago infant care was heavily subsidized and widely used. But with the introduction of 12 months parental leave at 80 per cent of salary, the use of nurseries declined steeply and child care is today rare for Swedish children under the age of 18
The Barcelona targets on ‘childcare’, particularly the 33 per cent attendance target for children under the age of three, are unlikely to be met for many of the EU member states
First generation of pri-primary school children where most kids will spend much of their waking and sleeping hours in by others

8. Access 3-6
16 out of the 24 OECD countries for which data is available have more than three quarters of four-year olds in ECEC
Ranging from a few hours per day or week to full day centre based services
By informal/relative/au pari/neighbour to full scale centre based services
In the EU 84% of the children aged 3 to mandatory schooling age are cared for under formal arrangements. Some 44% of the children in this age group use such arrangements for less than 30 hours (EU-SILC)
First generation of pri-primary school children where most kids will spend much of their waking and sleeping hours in by others

9. Key features of ECS QUALITY
Regulatory framework, curriculum, staff training and support (for public and private services)
Unified system of childcare and early education
Universal better than special
Inclusion of vulnerable kids, diversity for all kids
Holistic development rather than poor care and early ‘schoolarisation’
Stimulating environments –indoors and outdoors
Highly qualified staff - > 80% staff trained in ECD, >50% advanced degree
Good staff:child ratio - 1:15, 24 kids per group
Special attention to kids with learning needs

11. Quality and Expenditure
‘Access without quality is of little merit’
Good quality services takes well-trained and well-paid staff and small groups
Poor quality services may have adverse impact, contribute to growing disparities
The quality of quality services varies greatly across OECD countries in terms of
training and payment of staff
staff-child ratios and group size groups
Investment pays!
‘Investment in early childhood is more important than subsequent investments’. Still, present investment is far too low – needs doubling in many cases to meet the benchmark set at ‘1 per cent of GDP’
Countries that do invest, in general do well in providing access to a wide array of quality ECEC services!
First generation of pri-primary school children where most kids will spend much of their waking and sleeping hours in by others

12. Heckman Curve: Rates of Return to Human Capital Investment
Source: James Heckman, former Nobel prize-winner in economics (Carneiro & Heckman, 2003)

13. At-risk-of-poverty rates in the EU (%),EU-27, 2006 (IRC uses 50%)
Findings: Children living in poverty
At-risk-of-poverty rates in the EU (%),EU-27, (IRC uses 50%)
Income year 2005 (income year 2006 or IE and the UK); except for BG and RO – estimates based on the 2006 national household budget survey.
Figure from Isabelle Maquet paper on: Fighting child poverty in the European Union: How International benchmarking can contribute to awareness raising and ehance delivery at EU and national level.
Figure from paper by Isabelle Maquet; Fighting child poverty in the European Union: How international
benchmarking can contribute to awareness raising and enhance delivery at EU and national level.
Data source: European Union Statistics on Income Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2006

14. Child poverty and exclusion
Disadvantages are persistent
Even the best funded and designed services can only overcome disadvantage to a certain degree
Supporting policies are required to make investment in ECD/ECEC pay off: poverty reduction, reaching every child from birth onward
RC 6 recommendation: all OECD countries should aim for a child poverty rate target “below 10%” (50% of median)

15. Promoting quality early childhood policies in the EU
National plan of action, special attention to the disadvantaged
Incentives to local government to implement
‘Access without quality is of little merit’
Investment should be made on the whole spectrum of policy areas that affect young children’s lives
Collection and reporting of disaggregated statistical data and other information
Expansion of ‘Barcelona targets’ to include quality aspects/standards - benchmark

16. A best practice… San Miniato, Italy
40% of children <3 attend a nursery, 100% of 3-to-5 year olds receive early education in state-run nursery schools
The level of local public expenditure is enough to cover about three quarters of the total cost of services
Legislation that ensures better qualified staff
Young children are recognized as competent actors in the learning process
Services provided work with parents, carers, families and community
A “constructivist” concept of learning in which a child uses experience in order to consturct his/her own views
Documentation of activities of each individual child
An environment and design that is conducive for learning
Source: Children in Scotland (2008)Young Children in Charge: A Small Italian Community with Big Ideas for Children, Edinburgh,

17. Thank you