Global

Research suggests that, when it comes to early childhood education and care, quality matters most. A growing number of countries are establishing monitoring systems to ensure quality and accountability in these programmes.

This new publication explores how countries can develop and use these systems to enhance service and staff quality for the benefit of child development. It offers an international perspective and concrete examples to help policy makers, monitoring experts and practitioners in the field develop their own monitoring policies and practices.

This up to date text is suitable for students on all early years and early childhood courses as well as interested practitioners. It looks at the current structure of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce in different countries, each of which represents a distinct philosophical tradition, tracing what has shaped this structure and examining how politics and policy have moulded the workforce over time. Each chapter analyses historical, philosophical and political developments in the respective country and looks at key theorists, the concepts of childhood that have shaped the workforce and the pedagogical approach. The unique aspects of each country are highlighted along with a consideration of what the future might hold for the workforce. Students and practitioners will achieve a more critical understanding of current practice and the beliefs which underpin particular pedagogical approaches while being encouraged to question their own values and practice.

The goal of the integrated programme guide for ECD in emergencies is to guide the humanitarian community in designing a response that takes into account the needs of young children. This programme guide can be used in times of emergency preparedness, response, and early recovery, and for building resilience. It is designed for use by UNICEF Programme Officers as well as for representatives from other UN agencies, NGOs and government divisions responsible for designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating ECD interventions.

Children need good care. Their survival through childhood depends on adults who notice when they are hungry or sick, and are able to meet their needs.

Good care also means keeping children safe from harm, and giving them love, attention, and many opportunities to learn. From birth, children build ties to special adults and look to them to learn important skills. What children learn from these relationships helps to prepare them for life.

This course on Counsel the Family on Care for Child Development supports the efforts of families and others in your community who are trying to raise healthy, happy children. They may live in poverty and face many other challenges. The children they raise may be their own. Or they may have accepted the task of raising other children in their family or community. You can help them be better able to care for their children, even under difficult conditions.

Course Objectives

At the end of the course on Counsel the Family on Care for Development, you will be able to:

• Identify the interaction between a child and a parent or other person – the primary caregiver – who most directly takes care of the child.
• Counsel the family on activities to strengthen the relationship between the child and the caregiver.
• Advise the family on appropriate play and communication activities to stimulate the child’s growth and healthy development.

As you learn these tasks, you will focus on observing caregivers with their children. Using good communication skills, you will counsel the family.

The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers was adopted on 5 October 1966 at a special intergovernmental conference convened by UNESCO in Paris in cooperation with the ILO. It sets forth the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and international standards for their initial preparation and further education, recruitment, employment, teaching and learning conditions. It also contains many recommendations for teachers’ participation in educational decisions through consultation and negotiation with educational authorities. Since its adoption, the Recommendation has been considered an important set of guidelines to promote teachers’ status in the interest of quality education.
The ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Education of Teachers (1966) is accompanied by the UNESCO Recommendations concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel, WHICH was adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1997, following years of preparatory work between UNESCO and the ILO. This standard is a set of recommended practices covering all high ereducation teaching personnel. It is designed to complement the 1966 Recommendation, and is promoted and its implementation monitored by UNESCO in cooperation with the ILO, notably through the Joint ILO/ UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel (CEART).

ILO/UNESCO

2008

This report summarizes the analysis of major issues affecting the status of teaching personnel worldwide at all levels of education by the 12th Session of the Joint ILO–UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendations concerning Teaching Personnel (the Joint Committee), held in Paris on 20–24 April 2015. Composed of independent education experts from around the world, the 12th Session of the Joint Committee examined a number of urgent issues affecting teaching personnel, including quality teaching in higher education, professionalization of early childhood education personnel, changing employment relationships in teaching, the impact of digital technologies, and social dialogue. The Joint Committee also examined a number of allegations from teacher unions regarding the application of the Recommendations. The report of this session contains recommendations to the Governing Body of the ILO and to the Executive Board of UNESCO, and through them to governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations of their member States, on how to improve the condition of the teaching profession within their respective mandates, using the two Recommendations as guidelines. The recommendations of the Joint Committee are nonbinding, being intended to guide the actions of national authorities, employers’ and workers’ organizations and other education stakeholders.

ILO and UNESCO

2015

This report is an important contribution to the Women at Work Centenary Initiative. It gives a picture of where women stand today and how they have progressed in the world of work over the last 20 years, and of the root causes of inequalities and how they should be tackled based on what works and the guidance provided by international labour standards. It shows that, despite some encouraging advances, major gender gaps at work remain. Increasing gender parity in educational attainment does not prevent women from being concentrated in middle to lower-paid occupations that reflect traditional gender stereotypes and beliefs about women’s and men’s aspirations and capabilities. While sectoral and occupational segregation and differences in working time contribute to the gender wage gap, the report turns the spotlight on the role of the discrimination that further exacerbates labour market inequalities, including the persistent differences in access to social protection between women and men. The report also discusses the extent to which measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid household and care work in families and societies affect women’s access to quality work and social protection. It shows how work-family policies aligned with international labour standards can help to remedy inequalities and to transform the gender-based division of labour at home.

The report aspires to support a renewed and reinforced global commitment towards gender equality at work, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is also hoped that the report will be of use to ILO constituents in their efforts to identify, in their specific contexts, the policies that are most conducive to the attainment of substantive equality between women and men, combining increased economic growth with decreased income inequality.

International Labor Organization

2016

This literature review of national and international surveys of early childhood care and education (ECCE) provision and the teaching workforce was commissioned by UNESCO to inform the development of survey instrument and methodology for the Survey of Teachers in Pre-Primary Education (STEPP) project (May 2015–December 2017). The key tasks set by UNESCO were to:

1. Provide an analysis of the purpose, scope, content, target population/ institution, sampling procedure and sample size of relevant international and national surveys, including the kinds of constructs and indicators/variables included;
2. Identify lessons from the implementation of relevant international and national surveys, from which the project can learn;
3. Provide recommendations to the Project

The main purpose of the surveys was to make visible information about the teacher workforce in order to analyse and compare policy, to highlight issues that might be supported by policy and practice and to make plans within countries to enhance the teacher workforce. Survey information can also generate theoretical understanding by enabling relationships between variables to be examined.
The report presents lessons learnt from the implementation of the surveys as well as recommendations for future research.