One of the new ideas or insights I gained about issues related to international early childhood education that relate to my professional goals is UNESCO and the Council of Europe are finalizing guidelines for policy-makers towards ensuring the right to basic education for Roma children, with particular emphasis on improving access to early childhood educational opportunities and their transition to quality primary education. These guidelines, entitled “Including Roma and Traveler Children in early Childhood Education Services” are expected to significantly contribute to making Roma’s and Travelers’’ rights to quality and successful early childhood education a reality, and to guarantee an easy transition to primary school.
The next insight or ideas that relates to my goals is the ECCE workforce is often made up of a diverse group of pre-school teachers, care workers, and other professionals. Adequate training and work conditions are essential so they can integrate the content and practice of early childhood care and education and address the transition to formal schooling. The service setting and physical infrastructure may vary greatly within countries. Regular inspection and follow-up of the service setting as well as adequate health and nutrition components are also crucial for meaningful learning to take place.
The final insight or ideas that relates to my goals is a section on a conference held in November of last year entitled The Convention on the Rights of the Child. The conference covered information on every child having the right to an education. It is an example of the largest number of ratifications of any convention. What is needed now is a sharper focus on the universal and effective application of the right to education. The gap between ratification and implementation can be seen in the 69 million children, most of them girls, who are still deprived of their right to basic education. Even those children who do have access to school often suffer from poor quality education and leave school without having acquired basic skills.
As guarantors and promoters of the right to education, they must reflect these obligations in their Constitution and laws and take steps to improve education policies and strategies to give it effect. The biggest challenge is to eliminate disparities in education and to ensure that the core obligations of States regarding the right to education remain in the forefront, not only for accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, but for pushing the Education for All agenda forward. The right to education is not only a human right in itself but also essential for the exercise of all other human rights.
Reference
Early Childhood Care and Education retrieved from (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/)
You stated that children who do have access to school often suffer from poor quality education and leave school without having acquired basic skills. I have to say that I agree with this because poor quality education will cause I child to have poor academics. I feel that teachers should be required to have a certain amount of children passing tests to obtain their job and at the same time be rewarded for having a certain amount or over half passing their state test. I think that this will motivate the teacher and at the same time an incentive will reward both teacher and student.
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