Early childhood care and development

This report was prepared as a contribution to the Year 2000 Assessment Education for All. It is an assessment of global and national changes that have occurred in basic education since the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990. The Jomtien declaration stated the 'Learning begins at birth', and one of the targets was expansion of early childhood care and development activities, including family and community interventions especially for poor, disadvantaged and disabled children. The report examines how far these targets have been met, focusing on countries in the South. The conclusion is that each country has its own challenges according to the social and cultural context, but general areas to focus on would be: training and supervision, evaluation and monitoring, and involving and supporting parents and families. In particular one of the findings was that there was a lack of attention to particular populations: low-income, rural, indigenous, girls, HIV/AIDS, children aged 0-3, pregnant and lactating mothers, working mothers and fathers