Professional contacts week 7

This week I reviewed the UNESCO website.  UNESCO is an agency that specializes in building peace, eradicating poverty, and sustaining development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.  The UNESCO also advocates for early childhood care and education.

According to UNESCO access and equity is a global issue.  Some countries committed themselves to improve and support the early childhood care for the most vulnerable children.  Government many times lack financial resources to support early childhood care and education for many low income families.

The quality of the programs and teachers is also important in any part of the world.  Quality factors are pedagogy materials, training and parent involvement.   Learning materials should be quantitatively, culturally and developmentally adequate and focus on child-centered interaction.

Another issue is financial resources to support early childhood quality programs.  All countries struggle to find funds,  developed countries priority and  support and develop primary education.

The early childhood issues are similar in all countries including USA.  It is an international problem to have all families access high quality programs.  Also, funds are a challenge in times of economic crisis throughout the world.  I am very glad that an organization such as UNESCO contributes their advocacy  effort every day to help overcome these current issues in the field.