people and planet

11
30 country reports in 3 areas, not limited to education:
the enabling environment (legal framework, intersectoral
coordination and finance); implementation (programme
scope, coverage and equity); and monitoring and quality
assurance (data availability, standards and compliance).
An important aspect of quality is the extent to which
standards are set and enforced. Among 21 countries with
data, 8 did not have standards on the pupil/teacher ratio in
public early childhood education institutions. Of those that
did, 5 enforced them, and 3 set and enforced a standard
of no more than 15 children per teacher (Table 11.2).
TABLE 11.2:
Setting and enforcing standards on the pupil/teacher ratio
in public early childhood education institutions, selected
countries, 2012–2015
No standards
Yes >15 children/teacher; not enforced
Yes ≤15 children/teacher; not enforced
Yes >15 children/teacher; enforced
Yes ≤15 children/teacher; enforced
Belize, D. R. Congo, Gambia, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, U. R. Tanzania,
Uganda, Yemen
Burkina Faso, Guinea, Malawi, Nigeria
Tonga
Albania, Jamaica, Kiribati, Mauritius, Nepal
Bulgaria, Indonesia, Samoa
Source: World Bank SABER early childhood development country reports.
In Europe, a monitoring mechanism helps countries
exchange information on aspects of early childhood
care and education systems, finding, for example, large
differences between processes of evaluating whether
settings meet standards. Evaluations are carried out at
the central (e.g. Croatia), regional (e.g. Spain) or local
(e.g. Lithuania) level or jointly at two (e.g. Denmark) or
three levels (e.g. Finland). They are sometimes delegated to
independent agencies (e.g. in Scotland [United Kingdom])
or to non-profit companies operating on behalf of central
authorities (e.g. in Ireland). In Italy, there is no external
evaluation process for institutions serving older children,
but local authorities evaluate institutions for younger
children (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/
Eurostat, 2014).
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) undertakes voluntary reviews
of the early childhood care and education systems
of member and non-member countries every three
years. The most recent round focused on national
monitoring systems of quality. In Kazakhstan, there is a
standardized national framework of quality and effective
feedback mechanisms between central authorities
and local public providers. Monitoring is relatively
infrequent, once every five years, and tends to have
limited information about private institutions. In Mexico,
despite very diverse institutional provision, involving
federal and other public home-based and centre-based
care, monitoring occurs annually and in-service training
for evaluators is provided (OECD, 2015g).
CHILD DEVELOPMENT OUTCOMES
Target 4.2 focuses on ensuring that children begin formal
schooling developmentally on track and ‘ready for primary
education’. This holistic view linked to school-based
learning marks a shift from a view of child development
based exclusively on health-related indicators.
Early childhood development, which refers to
neurological and physical growth in the early years of
life, has lasting implications for learning, health and wellbeing
(Walker et al., 2007). Accurate, reliable measures of
early childhood development can inform policy-making
and investment alternatives, contribute to curricular
reform and teacher training, and identify children at risk.
Promoting early childhood development, especially for
the marginalized, is a pathway to reducing inequality by
ensuring that all children begin formal schooling on an
even plane. Tracking early childhood development will
likely reveal disparities that begin very early in life, at
birth or earlier, and grow larger over time.
Measuring young children’s development and readiness
to learn has long entailed debate on the reliability of
tools and the ethics of involving very young children
(e.g. Myers, 2006; Zill, 2005). Critics question whether
measuring such aspects of early childhood at a
population level is even possible.
Despite concerns, efforts to track progress towards
target 4.2 should carefully consider recently developed
measures of early childhood development. Efforts
should focus on population-based measurement, or
measures designed to inform policy at the national
level, rather than diagnose individual children with
delayed development. Population-based measures differ
from measures designed for research or programme
evaluation, as they are designed for use at scale, with an
emphasis on feasible, cost-effective measurement.
This subsection reviews key issues on early childhood
development and some of the most commonly used
regional and global measures. 1
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 213