EFA Goal 1: Early childhood care and education; Asia ... - Unicef

or relevant for all countries; there may also be unique or context-specific recommendations that
need to be developed or strengthened.
This EDN does not provide a national analysis for every country, nor does it analyse information
from every country in the region. Rather, it provides an overview of quantitative and qualitative
information and presents some common issues, debates and solutions that have emerged in the
region.
Information on ECCE was not always easy to obtain due to the fact that regional mechanisms for
reporting on indicators are relatively recent; thus, the lack of information presented a major limitation.
Where available, information was not always disaggregated and was sometimes represented in the
form of one composite indicator rather than as a complex set of indicators that reflected gender,
location, class, caste, social context and other factors.
2.2 Why ECCE is important for policy-makers to
address – Rationale for holistic ECCE
The first eight years of a child’s life is a period of tremendous growth and development. Brain
connections multiply exponentially in the first three years, and the potential for ensuring optimal
development is very high up to age 8. It is imperative that this true ‘window of opportunity’ is
fully used and strengthened to ensure long-term benefits, not just for each individual child’s
development but also for the larger community. Research indicates that ECCE can be a powerful
instrument for helping to break the cycle of poverty in many countries (Arnold, 2004). ECCE also is
widely recognized as a significant pathway to inclusiveness and social equity in education, provided
that the programmes are accessible to all sections of a society (Miyahara and Meyers, 2008; Becher
and Li, 2010). Children who have participated in high quality ECCE demonstrate considerable gains
in social, educational, health and intellectual spheres, distinctively different from those who have
not participated in ECCE programmes. Within the framework of education as a human right and
not just a family or a school obligation (Hayashikawa, 2008), ECCE can assist governments in fulfilling
their commitments (such as through the Convention on the Rights of the Child) to help young
children exercise their rights and develop to their full potential.
Figure 1 indicates that among some countries in the region, children who have had prior ECCE
experience are more likely to complete primary education. This finding supports Heckman’s
repeated contention (2000, 2006; Heckman and Carneiro, 2003) that the highest rate of return is
possible when an ECCE intervention targets the very young in a country.
Figure 1: ECCE experience and survival rate to the last grade of primary education in
selected countries, 2009
Survival rates to the last grade
of primary education (%)
100
90
80
70
Myanmar
Lao PDR
Islamic Republic of Iran
60
R 2 = 0.3124
50
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Source: Statistical Annex, Goal 1 and Goal 2, UIS, 2011.
Philippines
Vanuatu
New entrants to primary education with ECCE experience (%)
Malaysia
EFA Goal 1: Early Childhood Care and Education
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