Developing a set of Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) for children aged 0-6 in Egypt, Prague

Description

Background: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) state that reducing poverty, promoting health and wellbeing, access to inclusive education and gender equality all contribute to improving people’s lives and sustainable development. It is estimated that 250 million children (43%) younger than 5 years in low-and-middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Multi-sectoral coverage of quality programming that incorporates health, nutrition, security and safety, responsive caregiving, and early learning are essential to meet the needs of these children (Black et al., 2017). It is therefore important that we determine how early childhood development is defined and discover the appropriate mechanisms through which each child can be supported to reach their developmental potential, in their own context. Research also shows that there is a need to work in a multi-sectoral way to meet the holistic needs of children. Objectives: This work, part of the LINKS project, conducted in Egypt and in partnership with UNICEF, aimed (i) to agree a common definition of child development; (ii) to agree on the child development domains; (iii) to develop a common understanding of standards and associated indicators; (iv) to identify a range of national and global indicators and explore the measurement of potential indicators of child development. Methods: The research team sought to establish early learning and development standards (ELDS) in Egypt in two ways: (i) through a scoping review of relevant international measures and tools and (ii) workshops conducted with national stakeholders, including representatives from various ministries, academia, civil society partners, with the aim to reach agreement on a national ELDS framework. Results/Conclusions: The team established a holistic set of early learning and development standards (ELDS) for Egypt- the “Head, Heart, Health and Hand Model”. It is hoped that the agreed standards can inform policy development on a national level and that the interdisciplinary, multi-sectoral workshop model used can be replicated elsewhere.

Period	12 Sept 2024
Event title	Global Evidence Summit, Prague, 2024: Using Evidence. Improving Lives.
Event type	Conference
Location	Prague, Czech RepublicShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International