How Far is Early Education Achieving the Dakar Goals? Young Lives Evidence from Four Countries
Abstract
This short paper draws attention to the challenges of ensuring that early childhood programmes live up to their promise as a pro-poor strategy, faced with inequalities of access to quality programmes, and the implications in some countries of a growing private sector. This note draws on evidence from: (i) Round 2 of the Young Lives longitudinal survey (in 2006/7) involving 2,000 younger cohort children in each of the study countries (Peru, India, Vietnam and Ethiopia), aged 5-6 years, and focussing especially on issues of access, equity and quality. Qualitative studies have also been carried out with a sub-sample of children making the transition to primary school, drawing attention to the role of expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education (ECCE; goal 1 of the Dakar Framework for Action), as a gateway to divergent (and unequal) pathways and outcomes.
Citation
Young Lives, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, UK, 6 pp.
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