1. Children Wellbeing Across Cultures: Reaching the Unreached and Including the Excluded
Sheldon Shaeffer
Chair, Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific
Regional Network on Early Childhood (ARNEC)

2. Inclusive Early Childhood
Contents
Inclusive Early Childhood
Care and Education
Why is it important and why invest in it?
What is it?
Why do it?
What does it do?
How to do it?

3. Core Messages
Good quality, comprehensive, and integrated ECCE programmes are essential for the well-being of young children, their future educational success, and the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals.
ECCE programmes must be genuinely inclusive, available to all young children, with a special focus on the most disadvantaged.
ECCE programmes are important in achieving a truly inclusive education system. They help get both “children ready for school” – and ready for learning – and “schools ready for children”.

4. Provocations
We know that the most disadvantaged children (over 250 million under 5) benefit the most from ECCE programmes:
girls, migrants, and others affected by conflict, disaster, and abuse
children of the extreme poor and living in rural and remote areas
children in poor health and with disabilities and delays
children of linguistic/ethnic minorities
So why are these children most often excluded from ECCE programmes?

6. Provocations We know that good quality ECCE programmes lead to:
better, more equal outcomes for children – e.g., lower mortality, better school achievement, higher future incomes
less inequality and poverty transmitted across generations
So why do so many governments ignore these facts and pay so little attention to early childhood?

7. (1) ECCE: Why is it important?
Sustainable Development Goal 4.2: All nations of the world should, by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care, and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.
Two indicators for the Goal:
The percentage of children under five years of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning, and psychosocial well-being
The participation rate in one year of organized learning before the official primary entry age, by sex

8. Why invest in ECCE?
Early childhood is the most important developmental phase in the human lifespan.
Inadequate ECCE leads later to serious individual and social costs -- poorer health and nutrition, higher rates of infant mortality, lower levels of educational achievement, and greater unemployment.
Preventive early interventions yield higher returns compared to later remedial services.

9. Moral and Legal Arguments
Children have rights – to education, health, and general well-being -- and good quality ECCE programmes can help fulfill these rights.
Children deserve good caregivers, good health, and good early learning – and to have safe, secure, and happy childhoods.
Early interventions in ECCE reduce child
abuse and child welfare costs.
Families deserve and need support to raise their children. States and local communities have a legal and moral obligation to provide such support.
I’ve changed these around enough that I’m not sure the citation should stay!

10. The Cultural Argument
ECCE programmes should be embedded in local culture and delivered in mother tongue. They are therefore more likely to have a strong impact on:
cultural identity and self-esteem
the inter-generational transmission of knowledge
future participation in national development by often disadvantaged ethnic and linguistic minorities.

11. (2) Inclusive ECCE: What is it?
An inclusive approach to ECCE:
insists on getting all children into ECCE programmes of good quality – integrated with health, nutrition, and protection services
is concerned with increasing enrolment, completion, and transition and ensuring longer-term school success
requires (1) an analysis of what causes exclusion and (2) the active searching for, and targeted support to, those excluded

12. (3) Inclusive ECCE: Why do it?
To help children realise the fundamental human right to education
To improve the efficiency and reduce the costs of education systems – fewer drop outs, less wastage, less failure
To promote individual and national economic, social, and political development
To promote social cohesion and inclusion – to live together and welcome diversity
To fulfil internationally mandated goals – the targets of the SDGs

13. (4) Inclusive ECCE: What does It do?
focuses on access (overcoming exclusion from ECCE programmes) by expanding provision, both public and private (home- , community-, and centre-based) which proactively seek excluded groups
does not exclude, stereotype, or discriminate on the basis of difference
is responsive to the diverse needs of all young children – their health and nutrition, socio-economic and family background, culture and language, and differing abilities, needs, and learning styles

14. Inclusive ECCE: What does it do?
uses diversity as an opportunity for better learning (not as a problem)
is affordable and accessible, especially for excluded groups
promotes gender equity in enrolment and outcomes by eliminating gender stereotypes and guaranteeing both girl-and boy-friendly facilities, learning materials, and teaching methods .

15. Inclusive ECCE: What does it do?
systematically identifies and maps the excluded and analyses the causes of their exclusion
develops prevention strategies to overcome the barriers to ECCE
is concerned with the quality of facilities, curriculum, and teaching (overcoming exclusion within ECCE programmes)
implements a comprehensive reform of the ECCE sub-sector -- its content, approaches, methods, structures, and strategies.

16. (5) Inclusive ECCE: How to do it?
Develop an inclusive vision and goals for the entire education system, starting from early childhood
Design a comprehensive, integrated approach to the healthy development and education of all children from pre-school through the early grades – the critical transition years
Develop ECCE curricula and learning materials oriented toward inclusion (e.g., without stereotypes, celebrating diversity)
Promote inclusive teaching-learning strategies and practices – child-centred, interactive, flexible – suitable to those most excluded from the system

17. Inclusive ECCE: How to do it?
Ensure collaboration across sectors – education, health, social welfare, etc. – in inclusive ECCE policies, strategies, programmes, structures, and budgets
Ensure inclusion-oriented pre-service and in-service teacher education (for pre-school and the early grades)
Develop mother tongue-based language policies with pre-school and the early grades (initial literacy) in the child’s home language

18. Summary: ECCD Increases the Sustainability and Equity of Development
Interventions in ECCD have sustainable, long-term effects both on a child’s well-being and on the development of human capital, social cohesion, and economic success.
The most disadvantaged children experience the most dramatic gains from ECCD programmes – but are least likely to be enrolled.
The unreached must therefore be more adequately reached and the excluded, more genuinely included.

19. Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC)