Early Learning: Lessons from Scaling Up - Early Childhood Matters No. 117

This edition of Early Childhood Matters looks at the question of how to scale up early learning provision without sacrificing quality. Articles consider lessons that can be learned from national-level experiences in South Africa, Kenya, the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Macedonia, Cuba, Chile, and Peru, as well as examining lessons at an organisational level with input from Reggio Emilia in the US, India's Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), the Caribbean's Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children (FDCC), International Step by Step Association (ISSA) in Central/Eastern Europe, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Other articles discuss what "quality" means in the context of early education services, outline the World Bank's new Systems Approach for Better Education Result-Early Childhood Development (SABER-ECD) tool to collect evidence on what works, and ask how interactive technology can help to scale up early learning.

Some communication-related aspects of these articles include the following:

    In the introduction, "Quality learning at scale: a new goal for the Bernard van Leer Foundation", Leonardo Yánez addresses the question: "Why invest in providing quality early childhood care at scale?" and introduces some of the stories enumerated in the publication.

    In "Cuba’s Educate Your Child programme", Alfredo Tinajero describes how interagency coordination in this economically poor and relatively isolated country has led to integrated services between health and education and integrated services for children from before birth, inspiring Brazil’s Primeira Infância Melhor programme, in which visitors to vulnerable households - urban, rural, and indigenous - carry a kit of health, nutrition, and early learning stimulation materials.

    In "Success factors in an integrated early childhood development policy", Paula Valenzuela Delpiano and Miguel Cordero Vega discuss how, with political will from governments and sectoral leaders, transcending partisanship, can define programmes, such as Chile Crece Contigo, as a lasting priority.

    In "Early childhood educational policies and programmes in Peru: challenges and prospects", Santiago Cueto, looking at Peru’s previous experiences of delivering early childhood services at scale, presents four lessons that could guide the new government.

    In "Going to scale: lessons from Head Start", Joan Lombardi identifies five factors that can guide other countries looking to emulate the programme’s longevity, including the importance of defining standards and monitoring how they are being met, training staff, and defining adequate hours children spend in the programme.

    In this interview of Naomi Eisenstad titled "If we’d scaled up more slowly, Sure Start might now be dead in the water’", insights include: the "speed at which the programme was expanded in the early years of the last decade, and its universal nature, with the vast majority of families seeing benefits for their children, ensured sustainability across a change of political administration even in difficult economic times."

    In "The scaling-up of early childhood development provision in Kenya since independence", Lynette Okengo identifies "four factors that have helped Kenya to achieve preschool services on a significant scale, including decentralised training and community involvement."

    In "Lessons from South Africa’s National Integrated Plan for ECD", Linda Biersteker details lessons that include the "importance of communication and overcoming resistance to moving programmes beyond a purely centre-based modality."

    In "The World Bank’s new tool to inform policy when scaling-up ECD", Emiliana Vegas and Amanda Epstein Devercelli describe setting up an effort to gather evidence on "what works" in early childhood development, outlining the SABER-ECD initiative.

    In this interview of Aart de Geus, he emphasises the OECD role in assisting its member states in refining their early childhood policies and programming.

    In "Stepping up: scaling-up the Step by Step Programme", Sarah Klaus points out that the International Step by Step Association operates in 28 countries and has scaled up preschool services, especially in former Soviet states since the early 1990s.

    In "Lessons for scaling-up a teaching methodology", Zoran Velkovski and Elena Misiks describe the Step by Step’s experiences in Macedonia.

    In "Cultural sustainability and the importance of the collective", S. Anandalakshmy tells the story of the SEWA in India, which has brought early learning services to its members on a wide scale.

    In "The evolution of the Foundation for the Development of Caribbean Children", Susan Branker, Fiona Wilson, and Rosalind Eyben outline the debate within that organisation as to whether scaling up should be pursued through a strategy of institutionalisation or organic growth.

    In "The challenge of assessment: scaling-up the Reggio Emilia approach in the USA?", Lella Gandini explores reasons why the Reggio Emilia Italian model of ECE has not been easy to scale.

    In "Measuring quality and using it to improve practice and policy in early childhood development", Pia Rebello Britto, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, and Kimberly Boller address the question of measurement in a paper from the Society for Research into Child Development.

    In "Can mobile technology really make kids smarter?", Cynthia Chiongr approaches "the question of scaling-up early learning from a very different angle: as smartphones, tablet computers and other such devices increasingly penetrate even poorer communities, what is their potential to support children’s learning?" She examines early research on the question.