VBJK

Caring and Learning Together. Integration of Early Childhood Care and Education within Education

UNESCO, Paris

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) generally embodies two different traditions: care and education. The former was often developed as welfare measures for working-class children who needed care while their parents were at work; the latter as kindergarten or pre-primary education, providing middle-class or all children with enriched educational activities prior
to formal schooling. This division between care and education has strongly infl uenced the organization and conceptualization of ECCE, and resulted in discontinuities and inequalities between childcare and early education sectors due to differences in access, availability, resourcing and quality.

To reduce the adverse effects of ‘split systems’, two main strategies have been employed: greater coordination and integration. Caring and Learning Together: A Cross-National Study on the Integration of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) within Education, a new UNESCO study on ECCE governance, focuses on examining the policy option of integrating ECCE within the education system, which is being adopted by a growing number of countries. It analyses and documents the experience of fi ve countries - Brazil, Jamaica, New Zealand, Slovenia and Sweden - and one municipality - Ghent in Belgium Flanders - which have chosen this option, to generate a better understanding of the rationales, processes and consequences of integration-within-education. It also looks at why other countries have not followed this course of action.