The Report laments, however, that too few developing countries and too few donor agencies have made early childhood a priority. Moreover, while the Report recognizes considerable progress toward EFA particularly in the areas of universal primary education, gender parity and increased international aid, there remains a long way to go in just eight years in order to meet the target year of 2015.
For instance, some 781 million adults still lack minimum literacy skills and two-thirds of them are women. Around 77 million primary school-age children are out of school, with many millions more in school, but not attending on a regular basis. There are also not enough qualified and motivated teachers to reach the EFA goals. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, needs 4 million teachers. Meantime, domestic spending on education as a share of GNP decreased in 41 of the 106 countries. In addition, external funding requirements for EFA are now estimated at US$ 11 billion a year, over three times the current level.
The evidence does not paint a bright future for the Filipino child, who is increasingly becoming more disadvantaged in a globalized world. The Philippines ranks 75th in EDI, below its Southeast Asian neighbors: Indonesia (58), Malaysia (52), and Vietnam (70), as well as other developing countries like Cuba (27), Chile (34), Costa Rica (41), Uruguay (53), and even Palestine (56). The ranks of the other Asian countries are: China (43), Myanmar (88), Cambodia (101) and Laos (103). There was no available data for Brunei, Singapore and Thailand.
The United Kingdom, Slovenia, Finland, Kazakhstan and France occupy the top five spots. The top 47 countries that have high EDI are deemed to have achieved the EFA goals.
"The Philippine education system – once the benchmark of excellence in the region – walked backward into the future. We could heed expert advice for the need for urgent bold action in, inter alia: crafting national early childhood policies that should be integrated in national development plans, built on partnerships that group multiple players from the government and the private sector, as well as increasing public spending on education, focusing on ECE and literacy," Amb. Zaide stated.
He recommends the following, "The UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines may wish to convene the inter-agency meeting to include policymakers including DepEd, NEDA, Congress and Senate (specifically the appropriations and education committees of both chambers) to discuss the Philippine situation in light of the 2007 EFA report, as well as to propose the basic, structural emergency and long-term solutions that will hopefully avert the uncontrolled deterioration of the Philippine education system."
ECCE, the first of six Education for All goals the world is committed to achieving by 2015, is the theme of this edition of the Report. The study also includes an assessment of progress towards the other five objectives, showing a marked acceleration in primary school enrolments, for both boys and girls, and an increase in aid to education, offset in several countries by a decline in national education spending.
"It is no coincidence that the first Education for All goal focuses on the youngest and most vulnerable children," said UNESCO Director-General Koichïro Matsuura. "Improving their well-being at the earliest age must be an integral and systematic component of education and poverty reduction policies. High-level political endorsement is essential to getting ECCE on the agenda."
"Early childhood programmes make for strong foundations and pay high dividends," says Nicholas Burnett, director of the Report. "Each year in the developing world, over 10 million children die before age five of mostly preventable diseases. Programmes that combine nutrition, immunization, health, hygiene, care and education can change this. They are also a determining contributor to better achievement in school. Despite this, the children who stand most to benefit from such programmes are those least likely to have access to them."
The best evidence on the benefits of early learning programmes comes from industrial countries. The US High/Scope Perry Preschool Program conducted in the 1960s targeted low-income African-American children assessed to be at high risk of school failure. Participants and a control group were tracked several times until age 40. Results showed clearly that participation led to increased IQ at age 5, higher rates of graduation from secondary school and higher earnings, with overall benefits exceeding costs at a ratio of 17:1. Research in fields ranging from neurobiology to psychology amply confirms how a child’s physical and psychological development is shaped by experiences during the first years of life.
In a field characterized in many countries by strong reliance on private funding, the Report warns that public policy must set quality standards and regulations to safeguard against inequalities. The Report states that targeting resources to the most disadvantaged children should be the first step of a broader national ECCE policy for all children.
The Report also emphasizes the importance of quality careers in early childhood programmes. Yet in developing countries, those working with young children typically receive less training than their primary school counterparts. Even in industrialized countries, highly trained educators often work alongside untrained child care workers, many of them part-time or volunteers. Some countries like the UK are moving to close the gap between education and care workers by introducing a national minimum wage in ECCE.
Most of the institutions surveyed have ECE which can connect to our UNESCO proposal to Paris that the Philippines become the UNESCO Lifelong Learning Center for Sustainable Development in Asia Pacific. The Center can ignite the dynamic projects of Cebu Normal University president Ester Velasquez, University of St. La Salle Bacolod dean Marissa Quezon, Carlos Hilado Memorial State College director Lorena Bangudos, Leyte Normal University VP Leonardo Onate and Leyte State University president Pacencia Milan, as well as TESDA Region VII director Engr. Urbano Budtan and Provincial director Lorena Yunque.
The 40-year old Operation Brotherhood Montessori Center, as the LLESD national laboratory for quality teacher training and curriculum for affordable Montessori education will be able to help transform their programs. The Center is meant to help re-engineer the Early Childhood Education projects of DepEd, the professional high school business apprenticeship for TESDA, as well as teacher training for CHED.
(The full Report, summary report and additional information is available on www.efareport.unesco.org. The EFA Global Monitoring Report is an annual publication prepared by an independent team based at UNESCO to monitor progress towards the six Education for All goals adopted in Dakar, Senegal in 2000.)
(For more information or reaction, please e-mail at exec@obmontessori.edu.ph or pssoliven@yahoo.com)