IMPORTANCE OF EARLY CHILDOOD EDUCATION

[kmaherali]

Full Interview with Dr. Sweta Shah, Global Lead for Early Childhood Development at AKF— Nov 2020

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDQBHGNVA30

On November 21, 2020, AKF hosted “Mind the Gap: Lessons from Challenging Education Contexts, and How We Can Safeguard the Next Generation’s Learning Outcomes,” with excerpts from a conversation with Khalil Z. Shariff, CEO of AKF USA, and Dr. Sweta Shah, Global Lead for Early Childhood Development at AKF. Watch the full interview between here.

[kmaherali]

The transformative power of parents – AKF launches two new courses to underscore the vital role that parents play in child development

AKF’s Global Lead for Early Childhood Development, Sweta Shah, explains the rationale behind the courses' development

Abdallah Salim lives with his wife Mariam, and 4-year-old son, Salim, in the remote village of Mbuta, which is near Mombasa on the coast of Kenya. Salim goes to Kadiria community pre-school, which has been supported by the Aga Khan Foundation’s long-established Madrasa Early Childhood Programme Kenya (MECP). Abdallah works in construction and is a part time electrician. His wife, Mariam is a stay-at-home mother.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Kenya in March 2020, forcing schools to close, Abdallah’s biggest worry was the effect it could pose on the development and learning of Salim. He also worried about how he would protect his family at home. Access to information in his remote village was a challenge.

One day he got a call from Salim’s teacher, Mesalimu, who told him about the Rise and Shine Initiative being implemented by the Madrasa ECD programme. Supported by the Aga Khan Foundation, the Government of Canada and Lego Foundation, the purpose of the initiative is to increase the knowledge and skills of parents like Abdallah and help them realise what they already know – how to ensure that their children could continue to learn, especially through play, develop and reach their full potential – while pre-schools were closed. The initiative provided weekly informative messages on WhatsApp. The messages shared activity and play ideas for parents to do at home with their children, as well as tips to keep families protected from COVID-19.

Through this initiative Abdallah has realised the critical role he plays in his own child’s development. “I have learned so much, but the best advice I received from the intervention was the parenting tips on praising my child, redirecting behaviour through play, and reinforcement of positive behaviour. This has changed our relationship in a very positive way,” said Abdallah. Despite pre-schools being closed, Abdallah has been able to use everyday interactions with his son to support his ongoing learning and development.

AKF and its partners, the Madrasa Early Childhood Programme and others, place parents at the centre of all early childhood responses because they share the fundamental belief that parents are children’s first and most important teachers. This is not a new priority – in fact it has been key to AKF’s ECD work for decades. Over the years, AKF has supported many parenting programs across its geographies. However, the pandemic has placed an even greater emphasis on the critical role that they play in ensuring children are safe, loved and can continue to grow and develop.

As part of AKF’s enhancing family and community support initiative, two new virtual courses have been recently developed called: Working With Parents of Young Children and Designing Parenting Programmes which target generalists who want to learn why working with parents of young children is important, and specialists who want to learn how to design parenting programmes. Both courses are completely free.

Though parents all over the world are overwhelmed with the daily challenges of supporting their children’s learning and development – mostly at home – as well as trying to earn a living, there has at least been one silver lining to the current crisis: many parents are now much more interested in parent support programmes, more involved with their child’s development and more actively helping their children to reach their full potential.

Photos at:

https://www.akf.org.uk/the-transformati ... 25c8c5fc8d

[kmaherali]

Aga Khan University launches online hub to train early childhood development workers



Nairobi, Kenya, 28 October 2021 – The Aga Khan University’s Institute for Human Development (AKU-IHD) has launched an online Early Childhood Development (ECD) Workforce Hub to advance the well-being of children and families around the world.

The Hub aims to bridge gaps that hinder children in resource-constrained and marginalised areas from achieving their potential and prevent them from being on an equal footing with their counterparts in high-resource settings. It will provide relevant information, courses and trainings to caregivers (including parents and families), frontline workers, policymakers, practitioners and others involved in early childhood development.

Recent work by UNICEF shows that ECD receives the least resources in low- and middle-income countries – with higher education getting the most resources – and has the least well-trained personnel. Greater investment in the sector is crucial to eliminate poverty and boost the holistic socio-economic development of a society.

Established through generous funding from UNICEF, the LEGO Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, Hilton Foundation and Johnson & Johnson, the ECD Workforce Hub will focus on the most disadvantaged communities.

Chief Justice of Kenya Martha Koome said the launch of this ECD Workforce Hub is a momentous event given that it targets the advancement and protection of a vulnerable segment of our community: children.

“Now more than ever, there is a need for coordinated efforts among health, education, child protection and social protection sectors to ensure holistic support for children in the early years,” said Chief Justice Koome. “Early childhood care and development is central to the lives of every family with young children. Given the Hub’s focus on children, their caregivers and the care-giving environment, its establishment resonates with our Constitution’s vision of the family serving as the foundation of the society.”


AKU-IHD’s Director Dr Amina Abubakar said the Hub will translate scientific material into practical information which can be used to advance a more holistic model of child development:

“More than 250 million children globally, and especially in low- and middle-income countries like Kenya, are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential due to chronic poverty, [and] lack of access to health care, good nutrition and responsive care. Through this Hub we plan to train the ECD workforce to provide high quality and accessible programmes and services for the most marginalised children.”

The online platform builds on previous work undertaken by AKU-IHD since its inception in 2014 through its Hilton Phase I and II projects, World Bank Early Years Fellowship project and the UNICEF/LEGO Foundation Scaling Up Playful Parenting Project.

The Institute’s studies and interventions have demonstrated how good ECD practices have a lifelong impact on the economic, social and physical well-being of an individual and society. Arif Neky, UN Kenya Adviser on Strategic Partnerships, commended the Aga Khan University on addressing some of the existing gaps around policy transformation across the country.

“Access to technical and professional development courses will enable policymakers and practitioners, frontline workers and many other stakeholders involved in the early days of a child to have a better understanding on the science of early childhood development, particularly those from impoverished and vulnerable communities in Kenya,” he said.

The ECD Workforce Hub can be easily accessed by phone, tablet or computer. Trainings and events will be available on demand to all members. Stakeholders interested in joining the network can do so for free.

For more information please contact:

Esther Peter at [email protected]

or write to [email protected]

https://www.akdn.org/press-release/aga- ... nt-workers

[kmaherali]

Educating from the cradle onwards



Researchers have proven that the first five years of a child’s life are the most crucial in terms of brain development.

Seeking knowledge is inextricably linked to faith and spirituality in the Muslim tradition. In his address during the foundation laying ceremony of the Aga Khan Academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mawlana Hazar Imam spoke of the intersection of education and faith. He said that, “The Holy Qur’an sees the discovery of knowledge as a spiritual responsibility, enabling us to better understand and more ably serve God’s creation.”

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) is reported to have said that, “Seeking knowledge is the duty of every Muslim, male or female.” Learning is the cornerstone of our identity because it provides the power to ask and seek answers to questions about human existence, and enables an understanding of the concepts of truth, reality, and justice. Alongside promoting curiosity, it is important that education is morally grounded in order to strengthen our identity as Muslims.

Given that Islam promotes education as a means of understanding our relationship to Allah and our fellow beings, it comes as no surprise that Mawlana Hazar Imam focuses on the need for quality education which equips students with ethical literacy. This ethical lens combined with compassion, in turn, forms the foundation of civil society — paramount in the improvement of the quality of life of people across the globe, especially in Africa and Asia.

In recent years, the world has faced a great deal of change, impacting overall quality of life. Through it all, the Jamat has been provided with the tools through which we are able to remain standing firm through periods of turmoil. As stated in the vision of the Aga Khan Academies, “The best way to manage change, whether positive or negative, is to prepare for it and that there is no greater form of preparation for change than investments in education.”

Mawlana Hazar Imam ensures quality educational development in the Jamat by guiding endeavours of the Aga Khan Education Boards (AKEBs), tasked with promoting quality education from Early Childhood Development (ECD) to Continued Learning, and every stage in between. In Pakistan, one such AKEB programme focused specifically on ECD is the Parwaaz programme.

Initiated in 2014, Parwaaz is an innovative caregiver-based ECD programme, developed in collaboration with ITREBs and AKDN institutions. It aims to reach all Ismaili children in the country between the ages of six months and three years. Through engaging children and caregivers in activities, Parwaaz seeks to strengthen a child’s bond with their caregiver and allows for a space to support their social, cognitive, emotional, psychological, and spiritual development. The involvement of caregivers is imperative to help impart a sense of self-worth, identity, and enthusiasm for learning in children.

The need for the Parwaaz programme stems from evidence in the fields of physiology, health, sociology, psychology, and education. Researchers have proven that the first five years of a child’s life are the most crucial in terms of rapid learning and brain development, alongside personality and social behaviour development. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 also include Early Childhood Development as it directly impacts seven other goals, namely poverty eradication, ending hunger and improving nutrition, ensuring healthy lives, achieving gender equality, reducing socio-economic inequalities, promoting peaceful societies, and strengthening civil society.

Since the time of Prophet Muhammad, learning centres allowed Muslims to enhance the understanding of their faith and its practice. As Mawlana Hazar Imam noted in 2008 in Bangladesh, “The roots we inherit from our history – linking us to a particular past – are a great source of strength and joy and inspiration. And a sound educational system should help nourish those roots.” Thus, through activities such as storytelling and singing, the Parwaaz programme imparts the values and ethics of our faith through play and fun. In this way, it is designed to be at the nexus of education and faith - a connection that the Imam has shown deep concern for time and again. Through simple play activities, young children develop fine motor skills, reading and writing skills, and the basic tenets of identity.

Caregivers in the Parwaaz programme have observed that storytelling activities have developed their children’s language skills and confidence in communicating with others. Additionally, the programme has provided parents and grandparents with the age-appropriate tools required to teach children about science, society, ethics, and faith.

The programme is one step in the right direction towards bettering the Jamat’s quality of life, and nourishing the foundational roots of a robust knowledge society.

https://the.ismaili/global/news/feature ... le-onwards

[kmaherali]

Synapse-Building: The Untapped Potential of Early Childhood

Early Childhood Education and Development has finally made it to the forefront of social consciousness and educational policy, defying the common misperception that children should simply spend their first five years playing.

As the brain is the command centre of the human body, distinctive parts of the brain are responsible for different abilities. Each newborn is equipped with brain cells that remain for life, but the connections between the brain cells are reinforced the most throughout their early years. Brain connections enable us to move, think, communicate and achieve nearly everything we set our minds to. Therefore, as these connections become more sophisticated, our brain continues to grow in more complex ways.

While genetics provide the initial foundation for growth, it is a child's everyday experiences and human connections that mould his or her brain which, in turn, provides the groundwork for future learning and development later in life. Whether the experience is positive or negative, a child's relationship with the adults in their lives have the most influential impact on their brain development. Fostering positive relationships with parents and providing optimal community environments have a significant impact on how the child matures.

A baby's brain begins to grow before birth and considerable 'wiring' happens within the brain throughout the early years, essentially scripting the child's development. A baby will learn about emotions between the ages of 2 and 6 months by seeing how you react to them and their emotions.

With young minds so in flux, successful educational tools can aid children with social skills, higher confidence levels, enhanced coordination and even greater inventiveness. A focus on teamwork, for example, enables children to think more broadly about social stances such as diversity and equality, enabling peaceful cooperation, teamwork and community-building from a young age. This is just one of the myriad of advantages of early childhood education.

The importance of educational institutions’ roles in this is not to be underestimated. As His Highness the Aga Khan said in his speech on the 25th anniversary of the Madrasa Early Childhood Development Programme in Kenya in 2007: “But we sometimes give too little attention to the schools which prepare young children for life itself - in all of its holistic dimensions. And yet the evidence accumulates steadily showing that an investment made in the earliest pre-school years can bring enormous dividends as a child proceeds from one level of education to another".

In response to His Highness’ advice, the Aga Khan Early Learning Centres (AKELC) across the globe focus on promoting culture, educational and social programmes for children aged 12 months to 4 years. They work to nurture creativity, child agencies and learning dispositions that enable children to believe in themselves and that they can learn anything, which goes on to become the very foundations we need our children to grow up with.

UC Berkeley psychologist Alison Gopnik calls attention to the fact that children’s minds are proven to be smarter, busier and faster than any adult’s in the book she co-authored - ‘The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains and How Children Learn’ - which allows us to conclude that Early Childhood Development schools not only play a major role in increasing learning abilities by allowing better communication and engagement to flow through, but also establish a child’s social competence, cognitive skills, emotional concentration, well-being and the physical abilities needed for life resilience.

For more information on AKELC Programs, please visit - https://www.agakhanschools.org/UAE/AKELC/Index

https://the.ismaili/uae/synapse-buildin ... -childhood

[kmaherali]

Christopher Jones for The New York Times

By David L. Kirp

Mr. Kirp is a professor at the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley, and the author, most recently, of “The College Dropout Scandal.”

Sign Up for the Education Briefing From preschool to grad school, get the latest U.S. education news. Get it sent to your inbox.
The Build Back Better plan, President Biden’s ambitious social spending bill, is dead in the water. However, a cornerstone of the bill — a historic commitment to early education and child care, offering universal access to prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds — still might have a chance of passage.

The $110 billion plan is popular. Seventy percent of voters want their representative to work with the president to enact it. More than 60 percent of registered voters see child care and preschool as a sound investment of taxpayer money. “Research shows, when a young child goes to school — not day care — they’re far more likely to graduate from high school and go to college or something after high school,” said the president, in a 2021 speech before a joint session of Congress.

However, a recent evaluation of Tennessee’s pre-K program threatens to throw a wrench in the works. Its conclusion — that students who enrolled in the program actually did worse, academically and behaviorally, in the third through sixth grades, than their classmates — has emboldened critics to question the wisdom of investing in early education.

But the critics have missed the real message of the research — whether pre-K makes a difference in students’ lives depends entirely on school quality.

A high-quality program, according to early childhood education experts, features small classes and low student-teacher ratios, with well-trained teachers, an evidence-based curriculum that emphasizes hands-on learning, not eat-your-spinach instruction in the ABC’s or coloring inside the lines, and lots of time for play. The focus is on kids’ physical, social and emotional growth as well as their cognitive development. In that setting, youngsters, preferably from different social backgrounds, are solving problems together, while their teachers talk with, not at, them.

In other words, a good preschool is a place you wish you had gone to when you were 4 years old.

While a host of studies has shown that the impact of high-quality preschool can reverberate years later, only a minority of pre-K programs meet this standard. After surveying preschools nationwide, W. Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research, concluded that “children in preschool typically spend much of their time in routine activities, including waiting or getting ready to do something and little time learning new concepts, getting feedback from teachers, and learning to plan and reflect on their actions and experiences.”

Prekindergarten will only realize its promise when it’s first class. That’s the conclusion of “Pre-K Effectiveness at a Large Scale,” a nationwide analysis of preschool’s effect on fourth graders’ reading and math achievement scores, conducted by Timothy J. Bartik and Brad Hershbein at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. In states with high-quality programs, attending pre-K boosts a student’s fourth-grade math scores by 2.8 percentiles and African-American students gain even more. However, the caliber of pre-K for the typical student in the average district isn’t good enough to generate substantial benefits. The bottom line: “For large-scale expansion of pre-K to make sense, policymakers must keep the quality up.”

The Tennessee program was a model of what not to do. “The state didn’t have a coherent vision,” Dale C. Farran, a Vanderbilt University professor and the co-author of the Tennessee study, told me. “Left to their own devices, each teacher was inventing pre-K on her own.”

Observers who sat in on nearly 300 pre-K classrooms reported that the teachers did the lion’s share of the talking. Such skill-and-drill teaching can familiarize children with basic facts, but those gains fade unless they are tied to deeper learning. “The most common activity in both sets of classrooms was transition,” Dr. Farran adds, “moving children from activity to activity with no learning opportunity during that time.”

Boston’s preschool program is widely regarded as among the nation’s best, with well-trained teachers, a one-to-11 teacher-student ratio and a research-rooted curriculum. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the district couldn’t meet the demand, so a lottery was used to determine which children to accept. Economists Guthrie Gray-Lobe (University of Chicago), Parag Pathak (M.I.T.) and Christopher Walters (U.C. Berkeley) tracked more than 4000 students from preschool through high school, comparing the outcomes of those who won a pre-K seat to those whose lottery number wasn’t high enough.

“If you were to judge Boston pre-K by students’ achievement test scores in sixth grade [the focus of the Tennessee study], it would look unimpressive,” Dr. Pathak told me. Yet life-changing experiences, not test scores, are what matter, and the impact of attending Boston pre-K confirms the value of good early education. Those who attended preschool were less likely to be suspended or become entangled with the juvenile justice system. They were six percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and eight percentage points more likely to enroll in college. The “soft skills” that children develop in preschool — wait your turn, share, use your words — are what drive academic and life success.

“President Biden’s plan has more potential to shrink achievement gaps and boost educational success than any national policy in the past half-century,” Mr. Barnett told me.

Federal funding would come just in time: A new study by the National Institute for Early Education Research finds that, because of the pandemic, a decade of progress was lost and the equity gap widened. “The pandemic confirmed that providing quality preschool programs that benefit children and families is not easy,” the report notes. Only five states had programs that met the institute’s list of 10 benchmarks of preschool quality, which include “college-educated teachers with specialized early childhood training, small classes that support individualization, and rigorous continuous improvement systems.”

But the sobering results of the Tennessee study remind us that we cannot be lulled into thinking that long-term benefits will inevitably follow if more 3- and 4-year-olds go to preschool. If prekindergarten is going to reach its transformative potential, it must be done right.

David Kirp (@DavidKirp) is a professor at the graduate school of the University of California, Berkeley, and the author, most recently, of “The College Dropout Scandal.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/opin ... 778d3e6de3

[kmaherali]

Thousands of parents and children have been enrolled in the Parwaaz early childhood programme in Afghanistan, which has contributed to a high ECD access rate among the Jamat.

In Afghanistan, the Parwaaz early childhood programme provides a safe space for parents and caregivers to lay the building blocks for their children’s futures.

Worldwide, 200 million children under the age of five are unable to reach their potential due to poverty, poor health and nutrition, and lack of learning opportunities. The vast majority of them are from disadvantaged households and communities in low-income countries.

Studies have shown that investments in Early Child Development (ECD) provide significant long-term benefits, including improved cognitive and social-emotional skills, which contribute to reduced economic inequality and an improved quality of life.

This is why Mawlana Hazar Imam has endorsed such programmes for the Jamat; to offer our children the best possible opportunities for future educational and career success. AKDN agencies and Jamati institutions run ECD programmes globally and train teachers in various parts of the world to set up their own centres.

Unfortunately, many children in Afghanistan have lacked an environment of stability and peace during their lifetimes, as have their parents. ECD programmes have the potential to generate intellectual and social dividends for children, and hope for the many families who continue to live in poverty.

During a visit to Pakistan, leaders of the Afghan Jamat, impressed by the Parwaaz ECD programme there for children aged six months to three years, requested assistance to develop a similar initiative.

In 2016, the Aga Khan Education Board in Pakistan began a pilot programme in Kabul to train ECD facilitators. Dr Almina Pardhan, an ECD specialist and Assistant Professor at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development, had led the development of the Parwaaz ECD programme for Pakistan, and was asked to support the Afghan ECD team to create a similar plan.

The objective was to train teachers and adapt the pilot programme to the specific cultural and country context. Today, the programme is offered through the Aga Khan Education Boards in Dari and in other local languages.

“ECD interventions that empower and support families to provide quality nurturing care for their children are powerful, cost-effective equalisers that ensure all young children are able to reach their full potential,” said Almina.

“The earliest years of life, beginning before a child is even born, are so critical,” she added. “This is a time of rapid brain development, which provides either a strong or a weak foundation for learning, mental and physical health, behaviour, resilience and adaptability throughout life. A strong, healthy parent/caregiver-child relationship is crucial for early development.”

The pandemic interrupted the full-scale implementation of the programme in Kabul. So the national ECD programme coordinator, Abdul Razaq Shaheenhaider, and his team worked with Almina and TKN volunteer D’Jemilla Daya in the UK to pivot the model and develop a telephone-based and online curriculum. Roshan Telecommunications also supported the programme by providing mobile SIM cards to teachers and families.

“This programme is my 13-month-old daughter’s favourite,” said Hamida, whose child attends the Parwaaz ECD programme in Kabul. “When we first came to the sessions, she was not yet talking. She has started to speak and now, she sings songs and recites Qasida. I can see how capable and active my daughter is, and am grateful for such a wonderful programme.”

ECD programmes require materials, toys, and books for hands-on learning experiences, which parents sometimes find difficult to purchase due to limited finances. To assist, the team worked with teachers and parents to create toys from readily-available local materials and, such as rattles made from empty plastic bottles filled with stones; puzzles made of empty product boxes; plastic bowls for stacking; toy mattresses and blankets made of fabric remnants, and so on.

Even in the most remote areas, when parents use such locally available resources, they feel empowered to engage their children in learning and play.

Through talking, singing, reading, and playing, positive interactions and learning opportunities provide the first steps in building socialisation skills, healthy parent-child relationships, learning through play, and for parents to support their children’s health and education development. Parents have been able to come together as a community, share concerns and stories, and feel a sense of connection at this difficult time.

“Parwaaz is having a significant impact in building parents, grandparents, and other caregivers’ confidence to nurture their children’s healthy growth, development, and learning,” said Abdul Razaq, remarking on the initiative’s impact.

Over 100 facilitators have been trained thus far, and thousands of children have been enrolled in the programme.

“I learned that brain development starts even before birth,” said Yasmin, whose child attends the Parwaaz ECD programme in Faizabad, Badakhshan. “I also learnt other useful things like how to care for, provide good nutrition, and play with my child in the early years. I have learnt about helping to nurture my child’s relationship with Allah and the importance of pluralism in my child’s life.”

“Now, my child is very confident,” she adds. “He has just started to speak. He loves all the songs and activities in the session and responds positively to them.”

https://the.ismaili/global/news/communi ... -173435533

[kmaherali]

THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF UNIVERSAL PRESCHOOL IN BOSTON

Guthrie Gray-Lobe
Parag A. Pathak
Christopher R. Walters
Working Paper 28756
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28756
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
May 2021

ABSTRACT

We use admissions lotteries to estimate the effects of large-scale public preschool in Boston on
college-going, college preparation, standardized test scores, and behavioral outcomes. Preschool
enrollment boosts college attendance, as well as SAT test-taking and high school graduation.
Preschool also decreases several disciplinary measures including juvenile incarceration, but has
no detectable impact on state achievement test scores. An analysis of subgroups shows that
effects on college enrollment, SAT-taking, and disciplinary outcomes are larger for boys than for
girls. Our findings illustrate possibilities for large-scale modern, public preschool and highlight
the importance of measuring long-term and non-test score outcomes in evaluating the
effectiveness of education programs.

The paper can be accessed at: https://www.nber.org/system/files/worki ... w28756.pdf

[kmaherali]

Dear All,

This World Children’s Day, we’re highlighting the critical importance of early childhood development in shaping the future and thanking you for making this work possible.

The early years of a child's life lay the foundation for lifelong growth. By investing in these crucial years together, we are helping children worldwide reach their full potential.

With the help of supporters like you, we’re working with local communities to promote the benefits of early childhood development. Through parental engagement sessions, caregivers learn how important it is to start educating children from a young age and to be actively involved in their growth.


Imtiaz is one of many fathers who participated in an AKFC-supported workshop, where he gained valuable insights and tools to support his daughter Alina's development.

"In our community, there was a prevailing belief that sending children to school at the age of seven or eight was sufficient, questioning the value of early education."  

As awareness grows about the importance of early childhood education, more families are enrolling their children in pre-primary schools. Last year, Canadian support reached over 2,500 children in Pakistan through early education programs, including preschools, community centres, and parenting groups.   

To celebrate World Children’s Day, we want to thank you for your amazing support. Together, we can continue to give the next generation the best possible start in life.

Sincerely,
The Aga Khan Foundation Canada Team