Landscape analysis

Early Childhood Care and Education in Five Asian Countries seeks to consolidate early childhood developments in Asia as a basis for The Head Foundations further research and advocacy in this area.

A general overview of the ECCE landscape in the Asia-Pacific region is introduced by this resource. Country profiles are included as a way to share data on individual countries. These country profiles are presented through five aspects:

1. Programme structure,
2. Teacher qualification
3. Demographics
4. Funding and governance structure,
5. Public-private share

These profiles also provide a look at current concerns and recent developments in the countries. Common threads between these profiles are also addressed.

Innovative approaches to continuous professional development (CPD) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Europe: Findings from a comparative review explores innovation as an aspect of in-service continuous professional development in ECEC.

A literature review and cross-country analysis conducted in ten European countries uncovered the fact that innovation in CPD was understood a way to improve quality. This finding shows how CPD encompasses processes such as critical thinking, reflexivity and co-creation within and across ECEC systems. This resource highlights insights identified as crucial aspects of CPD in terms of innovation including:

• Critical reflection;
• Communities of practice; and
• A growing focus on politics that address social inequality through ECEC

The analysis is a contribution to research on innovative CDP in ECEC at the micro, meso and macro levels. The authors suggest more research into in-depth and identified approaches to innovation related to CDP and their impact on the quality development in European ECEC. 

Early Childhood Workforce Index 2018 is the second edition of the biennial Early Childhood Workforce Index from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley. This edition continues to track the status of the early childhood education workforce and related state policies in order to understand changes over time. Several new analyses, as well as updated policy indicators and recommendations, have been added. 

The chapters in this resource take a look at those working in the early childhood workforce, their economic security and the policies that impact them.

Early Learning Career Pathways Initiative: Credentialing in the Early Care and Education Field introduces a career pathways framework 4 in use by several federal agencies, provides a national landscape of states’  requirements for ECE staff related to credentialing, highlights five states at various points in the development of ECE career pathways, and shows how early learning system components used in the majority of states align with the Six Key Elements of Career Pathways Framework that other industries use. The elements in this framework are:

Element 1. Build Cross-Agency Partnerships and Clarify Roles: Engage key cross-agency partners at the local and state levels, agree to a shared vision, and gain support from political leaders. Clearly define and formalize roles and responsibilities.

Element 2. Identify Sector or Industry and Engage Employers: Select sectors and industries and engage employers in the development of career pathways.

Element 3. Design Education and Training Programs: Design career pathway programs to provide a clear sequence of education and credentials that meet the skill needs of high-demand industries.

Element 4. Identify Funding Needs and Sources: Raise and/or leverage resources necessary to develop and operate the career pathway system and its education and training programs.

Element 5. Align Policies and Programs: Pursue state and local policy and administrative reforms in order to promote career pathway system development and to support implementation.

Element 6. Measure System Change and Performance: Assess system-wide change and measure performance outcomes to ensure continuous improvement.

Worthy Work, STILL Unlivable Wages: The Early Childhood Workforce 25 Years after the National Child Care Staffing Study offers a snapshot of today's early childhood teachers in the United States. The report takes a look through four lenses:

• Then and Now: Trends in Wages, Education, and Turnover Among Early Childhood Teachers, 1989-2014. A comparison of available evidence reveals the extent of change in center-based teachers’ wages, education, and rates of turnover over the past quarter century.
• Economic Insecurity Among Early Childhood Teachers. New evidence reveals the serious consequences of inadequate compensation on this predominantly female, ethnically diverse workforce.
• The Public Costs of Inadequate Compensation. An examination of how widely early childhood workers and their families use public benefits offers a first look at some of the hidden costs of the low wages endemic to this workforce.
• Policy Efforts to Improve Early Childhood Teaching Jobs. An appraisal of state and national efforts to improve the quality of early care and education in the United States focuses on how adequately these have addressed the low wages of the teaching workforce.

The report also offers thoughts on paths forward and reinvigorating the national conversation on the status and working conditions of teaching staff.

Excerpt

"In the 25 years since the release of the National Child Care Staffing Study, combined developments in science, practice, and policy have dramatically shifted the context for discussions about the status of early childhood teaching jobs, and the importance of attracting and retaining a well-prepared workforce that is capable of nurturing young children’s learning, health and development. Three narrative elements of this changed early care and education landscape set the stage for the new evidence presented in this report:

• A developmental story. Since 1989, we have gained exponentially greater knowledge of the powerful role of children’s earliest encounters with caregiving adults in setting a sturdy or fragile foundation for lifelong development.
• An economic story. There is now a far more widespread appreciation for the wise investment that high-quality early care and education (ECE) constitutes for children, families, and society at large.
• A policy story. For the first time since 1971, when national child care legislation made it all the way to a presidential veto, there is serious debate at the federal level, echoed in virtually every state, about the vital importance of improving the quality of early education, with vast implications for what we expect of the early childhood teaching workforce."

Early Childhood Policies and Systems in Eight Countries: Findings from IEA’s Early Childhood Education Study  is an exploration of early childhood education (ECE) provision and its role in children's preparation for school and participation in society. In this context, formal early education and provision of care for young children from birth to the age of primary school is described and analyzed in Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Poland, the Russian Federation and the United States. The data was collected by way of a policy questionnaire, which collected basic information about the wider policy context for ECE in the participating countries. This report provides an overview of strategies, as well as systemic and structural results of ECE policy at the national and, where necessary, subnational levels.

This research study, from International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, presents key findings are presented throughout the report, alongside their supporting evidence. 

More than half of the 70 million teachers (primary and secondary) in the world’s formal educational system are from the Asia-Pacific region – making it essential to document the current situation for teachers in the region. Teachers in Asia Pacific: Status and Rights (2015) examines the trends and policies affecting teachers’ status and their emerging needs and challenges. It provides a general picture of the current situation of teachers in Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Republic of Korea, Samoa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Why is this report so important?

Raising the status of teachers and upholding their rights is a critical and global issue.

This study reviewed essential elements of the current status and working conditions of teachers, examined the rights and privileges of teachers and developed recommendations for policies and strategies to attract qualified teachers and motivate them to remain in the teaching profession. The key recommendations, which are based on this research, are aimed at improving the status and rights of teachers in each of the countries studies, and in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.

Though country contexts are diverse, this report gives a snapshot of the region and highlights the importance of advancing teachers’ status and providing multiple career progression pathways to motivate them to remain in the profession.

What’s included in the recommendations?

The results and policy recommendations presented in this report provide insights that are valuable to governments in advancing the status of their teachers with the view of retaining them in the profession. These include recommendations on selection criteria, pre-service teacher education, professional development, career development, salaries, measuring teacher performance, school leadership, teachers’ voices, teachers’ working conditions and gender within the workforce.

This regional (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania and Serbia) overview aims to sketch the social service workforce—with a focus on those engaged in the child protection system—in southeast Europe. Specific research areas include, but are not limited to the following:
1. Perceptions and understandings of social service work
2. Who does what and where
3. Policy and regulatory frameworks
4. Organization and funding of child protection systems
5. Competencies and standards for the social service workforce
6. Professional development opportunities
7. Motivation and support
8. Working conditions for the workforce
The finding of the study can be used for improving the child protection system and the lives of children, families and communities by multiple stakeholders which among other include: national governments, professional social service worker associations, NGOs and civil society agencies that rely on the social service workforce to provide child protection services, and educational institutions who train social service workers.
This report represents part of a global research movement to map the social service workforce in diverse regions, which aims at highlighting promising approaches and unique elements to certain countries whereas at the same time identifies common challenges and trends across regions.

Child Protection Hub

2016

The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative's Landscape Analysis Series takes a deeper look at key questions left unanswered concerning the global early childhood development workforce:

• What do early childhood professionals and paraprofessionals need to know and do in order to perform effectively?
• How do requisite knowledge and skills vary across contexts?
• What types of training and support do staff receive?
• How is the early childhood workforce recruited, monitored, and evaluated?

The second of these analyses, Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Training and Professional Development, takes a closer look at training and professional development opportunities for the early childhood workforce.

Taking into account the diverse backgrounds and experiences of individuals delivering ECD services, training and professional development programs offer an opportunity to impart a core set of knowledge and skills to members of the early childhood workforce, which is particularly important as programs look to scale and reach a greater number of young children and families. In addition, there is evidence to suggest that supporting individuals with such opportunities can influence child development outcomes.

This analysis, published in January of 2018, synthesizes evidence on the approaches to and challenges associated with training and professional development across the early childhood workforce. An extensive review of published and grey literature, and key informant interviews with ECD experts yielded 10 findings.

You can find the full Landscape Analysis in English below. You may also download the Executive Summary in English, French and Spanish.

The Early Childhood Workforce Initiative's Landscape Analysis Series takes a deeper look at key questions left unanswered concerning the global early childhood development workforce:

• What do early childhood professionals and paraprofessionals need to know and do in order to perform effectively?
• How do requisite knowledge and skills vary across contexts?
• What types of training and support do staff receive?
• How is the early childhood workforce recruited, monitored, and evaluated?

The first of these analyses, Strengthening and Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce: Competences and Standards, deep dives into competences and standards. Competences and standards were of particular importance to our research because of their ability to:

1. increase the relevance of training and professional development,
2. enhance the quality of monitoring and mentoring opportunities,
3. support professionalization of the workforce, and
4. support workforce planning efforts.

This research, published in January of 2018, used an extensive review of published and grey literature to yield six key findings related to the ways in which countries have used competences and standards to support early childhood systems globally.

You can find the full Landscape Analysis in English below. You may also download the Executive Summary in English, French and Spanish.