Final Blog Assignment

One consequence of learning about the international early childhood field for my professional and personal development was learning how other countries feel as though high-quality education for young children is just as important as the early childhood professionals in the United States and therefore go to great lengths to provide professional development for the teachers. Another was learning that the girls in the United States should not take education for granted as I found out that there are countries who do not encourage educating girls and in fact refuse to educate girls in some cases.  Lastly, I learned that there are so many different variables that prevent young children from receiving, not just quality education but, education period. Things such as poverty, distance to the school, illness and diseases, and having to enter the workforce to help provide for the family all play a role in the children not receiving an education.  One goal for the field related to international awareness of issues and trends and the spirit of collegial relations would be continued communication and networking with early childhood education professionals in other countries in an attempt to all get on one accord and have the same standards set in place to ensure all young children receive high-quality education……as my colleagues continue in their professional path I wish them great success. It has been a pleasure learning from them all, gaining new insights, receiving support, encouragement, and constructive criticism through posts, and providing support to them as well.

 

 

Getting to know your international contacts part 3

The conclusion of the Sub Saharan Arica 2012 Education for All Report that was presented in November states that never in African history has so much been achieved in education over such a short period of time and governments are legitimately proud of their achievements. But the gap between the have and have-nots in education remains too large. Across Sub Saharan Africa, there is a general awareness that the last decade has witnessed unprecedented progress in the development of education. Net Enrollment Ratio in primary education had increased from 58% in 1999 to 76% by 2010 and the Gender parity index from 0.85 to 0.93 over the same period of time. Enrollment in secondary education more than doubled from 20.8 million to 43.7 million to grasp the full significance of the dividends yielded by the Education for All effort across the region within a decade. Despite the great achievements however, very few countries in the sub Saharan African region will reach the Education for All goals by the year 2015. The international community set the goals in 2000 during the World Education Forum in Dakar.While the prospects are positive for Universal Primary Education and Gender equality, the challenges are particularly daunting for the remaining four goals, namely early childhood care and education, youth and adult skills, adult literacy and the issue of quality. Here again the figures from Africa speak for themselves: 31 million children are out of school, 35% of the youth has no access to secondary education or technical skills development, and 163 adults are illiterate. 36% of the children in eastern and southern Africa reaching the minimum required level of maths competences against 43% in central and West Africa. 35% of children in west and central Africa acquire the minimum level of reading at the end of primary education against 64% of the children in eastern and southern Africa. “The gaps are simply too large and with the decreasing international assistance to education, resources are just not enough to bridge the differences,” comments Rodrigues. “Urgent action is needed to improve the quality of education in sub-Saharan Africa.

" The scale and diversity of mobile learning projects in the United Kingdom and Denmark indicate that sustained government investment is necessary to roll out large projects which effectively use mobile phones for learning. Secondary school teachers in Europe, beyond using mobile phones to enrich the delivery of education, have recently begun asking students to practice technical and critical thinking skills by designing their own mobile applications. These trends and illustrative projects, among others, are detailed in the newly released papers about mobile learning in Europe. The papers are an essential component of the broader UNESCO Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning. The Series scans the global to provide concrete examples of how mobile technologies, due largely to their availability and affordability, can respond to unique educational challenges in different contexts; supplement and enrich formal schooling; and, in general, make learning everywhere more accessible, equitable, and personalized.

“Stand up for Malala -- Stand up for girls’ right to education!” is the rallying cry of an advocacy event, taking place at UNESCO’s Paris Headquarters on 10 December, the United Nations Human Rights Day. Organized by UNESCO and the Government of Pakistan, the event will accelerate political action to ensure every girl’s right to go to school, and to advance girls’ education as an urgent priority for achieving Education For All.The event pays tribute to Malala Yousafazi, an astonishingly brave 15 year old girl who survived an assassination attempt for her determined efforts to defend girls’ education in Paskistan, after the Taliban outlawed schools for girls in her native Swat Valley. The human rights to education and gender equality were both violated by this action. “Whenever and wherever a young girl is forbidden from going to school, it’s an attack against all girls, against the right to learn, the right to live life to the full; and it is unacceptable,” declared UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova last month in an official manifestation of support for Malala. Indeed, there is no justification – be it cultural, economic or social – for denying girls and women an education. Humanity stands as a single community when united around human rights and fundamental freedoms. Malala’s struggle highlights a devastating reality: Girls make up the majority of the world’s 61 million out-of-school children. They are less likely than boys to enter primary school. Harmful practices such as early marriage, gender-based violence, discriminatory laws, prevent them from enrolling in or completing school. Educational disparities start at the youngest ages and continue into adulthood. Women represent two thirds of the world’s 775 million illiterates. Despite making breakthroughs in higher education, women still account for just 29 per cent of researchers.

 

 

 

 

 

Sharing Web Resources

The outside links I explored led to issues about free parent brochures and guides, maltreatment, child abuse and neglect, school readiness, and impact of trauma to name a few.  The area I chose to search was school readiness.  This issue is important to me because I mentor teachers and assist in preparing young children for kindergarten on a daily basis in my profession.  The link contained a web-based, interactive tool designed to help parents and caregivers support their young children's early learning.  You'll find age-based information on how children develop the four key skills - language and literacy skills, thinking skills, self-confidence and self-control that are critical to later school success.  No new information was available on school readiness, nor was there any information pertaining to or adding to my understanding of equity and excellence in early care and education to be found in any of the links. 

Sharing Web Resources

The information that was relevant to my current professional development was play and school readiness.  No ideas or statements discussed in the e-newsletter was controversial to me or made me think about an issue in new ways.  I agreed with all the information contained in the article.  The information contained in the website that added to my understanding of how economists, neuroscientists, or politicians support the early childhood field was implementing several early learning programs and encouraging early literacy programs. 

Getting To Know Your International Contact

The country I chose to read about childhood poverty in is India.  India is home to the majority of poor people in South Asia. Between 1973 and 2000, the percentage of the population below the poverty line declined continuously from 54.9% to and estimated 26%. In health, the country is undergoing an epidemiological transition.  There continues to be high rates of communicable diseases, malnutrition, maternal and perinatal illnesses, predominantly among poor people.  There are also growing rates of non-communicable diseases, while rapid urbanization is resulting in new health problems, such as HIV/AIDS, which is placing greater strains on society and the health of the poor in particular. An estimated 400 million of the population are between 0-18 years old.  Life for many of the children is very bad. Almost half ot all the children under the age of 5 are malnutritioned and 34% of new-borns are significantly underweight. India accounts for 20% of the world's out-of-school children and has the largest number of working children in the world. Girls livig in India have limited life chances and lower rates of school enrollment.  Ecology, livelihood sources and the social structure vary substantially across Rajasthan. As elsewhere in India, caste, class, ethnicity and gender strongly affect access to resources of all kinds. Official statistics suggest that poverty has declined from 33.3 percent to 13.5 percent between 1973 and 2000, though these figures are controversial.  Rajasthan's health indicators are amongst the poorest in the country, reflecting poverty, difficult living conditions and the fact that the primary health care has not reached a large majority of poor people, especially women and children, dalits and communities living in remote areas. Educational access, enrolment and achievement remain important challenges. The problems of children from underprivileged communities i.e. scheduled (disadvantaged) castes and tribes and minorities are exacerbated by both the lack of access to and poor quality of teaching and educational facilities and the lack of effort to make schools inclusive of all children. India's anti poverty programmes are mainly run by the central government. There are three main types - rural employment creation and infrastructure development programmes; self-employment; and food subsidy programmes. All three have been subject to reform in recent years to ensure better targeting and coverage. The largest food subsidy programme is the Public Distribution System, which is explicitly targeted towards the poor. The Swaran Jayanti Swarozgar Yojana, is a self-employment programme providing subsidised loans to self help groups. Besides these there are the rural works programmes. There are two main schemes under this- the Employment Assurance scheme and the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana, which. focuses on infrastructure development to be undertaken by the Gram panchayats or village local governments. All the programmes are giving a greater role to rural local government for implementation and for beneficiary selection and monitoring. The largest programme specifically targeted at children in the 0-6 age group is the Integrated Child Development Services Programme (ICDS). It is a centrally sponsored scheme covering all states. One new insight I have about poverty is that contraception never seems to be addressed. I just can't wrap my mind around living in poverty, but continue to reproduce. Why would people keeping having children when they are well aware of the fact that they can't take care of them. The government goes through all these different approaches to reduce poverty, but I feel they should be passing out birth control methods...Michael Jackson said "If you can't feed your baby, then don't have babies"......I agree!!!

Sharing Web Resources

The organization that I selected is Zero To Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families. The link is http://zttcfn.pub30.convio.net/child-development/from-baby-to-big-kid/. This organization is a national, nonprofit organization that informs, trains, and supports professionals, policymakers, and parents in their efforts to improve the lives of infants and toddlers. This organization's focus is to promote good health, strong families, positive early learning experiences, and development of infants and toddlers. One issue that caught my attention was parenting from a distance.  I feel the importance of this issue is greatly overlooked.  Parents who are separated from their children due to divorce, hospitalization, incarceration, foster care, military deloyment and other work related relocation are offered emotional support during these stressful circumstances.  There is definitely a need for these types of support groups.

Establishing Professional Contacts

I have chosen to take the alternate route to Part 1 of this assignment.  Honestly, I just have too much on my plate at the moment to choose the option of attempting to contact and communicate with an early childhood professional outside of the United States.  I am a single parent of 3 and a full-time employee.  Its hard enough for me to balance all that I have going on right now in my personal/professional life, reading the required resources, doing the applications, and responding in depth to discussion questions. I cant imagine adding finding time to contact and communicate with someone else.  If anyone has any suggestions I am definitely open to hearing them.  The organization I chose is Zero to Three: National Cener for Infants, Toddlers, and Families.