📅 14 – 16 November 2022
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Half of the young children in the world, at least 175 million, are not enrolled in pre-primary programmes. While there is evidence that a child’s early years are critical for shaping their ability to learn, develop, and reach their potential, accessing early learning opportunities remains one of the biggest challenges.
To bridge the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) gaps, UNESCO, in collaboration with Uzbekistan, is organizing an intergovernmental world conference to reaffirm the right of the child to quality ECCE from birth and urge Member States’ renewed commitment to and investment in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.2 which calls for ensuring that “all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education”.
A wide range of actors, varying from Member States, ministers, high-level personalities, international and regional organizations, and development partners to academics, practitioners, and civil society, will come together and contribute to tackle ECCE development initiatives. The Conference will gather approximately 1500 participants and will be organized around four objectives and five themes.
Objectives
- Take stock of the progress of Member States towards achieving the SDG 4.2 target and other early childhood related SDGs targets.
- Exchange knowledge about key enablers, emerging research results, good practices, and innovations to put in place and scale up quality ECCE policies and programmes.
- Reaffirm quality ECCE as a right of all children and as the essential foundation for lifelong learning and socio-cognitive development.
- Identify opportunities, develop, and agree upon on a set of priorities and strategies to accelerate SDG4.2 progress and increase investment in ECCE on the part of governments and their partners.
Themes and subthemes
- Inclusion, quality and Well-being: curricula and learning outcomes; early stimulation, early socialization; intergenerational learning, caregiving education and support parenthood challenges; early detection and referrals care, health, nutrition, sanitation; integrated early childhood intervention services for children with developmental difficulties; inclusive.
- ECCE workforce: pre-and in-service training, quality of professionals who interact with children and families in ECCE settings including their attraction to the profession, professionalisation, deployment, working conditions and valorisation of personnel; quality assurance aspects, including monitoring, inspection, and support.
- Programme innovations: findings from learning sciences, linguistics, and economics; play-based learning, technology, artificial intelligence; digital, hybrid and remote learning and care services; preparation for emergency situations, including pandemics disaster and conflicts; planning for climate impacts.
- Financing, policy and governance: including options for public expenditure; innovative financing; equity and efficiency; public-private partnerships; financial target, international cooperation, and funding. ECCE multisectorality; legal frameworks; governance structures; integration into education and learning systems; accountability through indicators, data collection, monitoring, research, and evidence, monitoring and evaluation.
The Conference plenary sessions will be held in the six United Nations official languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish) and Uzbek.
