ECCE teacher development
Early Childhood Teacher Development and Management in Southeast Asia
Well-trained teachers are especially important for and central to the quality of ECCE, as they can offer child-centred, stimulating and language-rich learning experiences. UNESCO Bangkok, in partnership with the Southeast Asia Ministries of Education Organization (SEAMEO), launched a new project on pre-primary teacher development in Southeast Asia, in order to contribute to the qualitative improvement of pre-primary education by professionalizing and strengthening the capacity of pre-primary teachers.
As a precursor to this project, UNESCO has been focusing efforts on providing technical and financial support to the development of the first degree-level pre-service teacher education curriculum for pre-school teachers in Lao PDR, while supporting the country to conduct policy research on ECCE practitioners’ status and professional development.
Project Information note: Pre-primary teacher development in Southeast Asia.
Activities
- First sub-regional workshop on pre-primary teacher development in Southeast Asia
- First sub-regional workshop report
- Second Workshop on Pre-primary Teacher Management and Development in Southeast Asia
- Second Workshop report
- The Southeast Asian Guidelines for Early Childhood Teacher Development and Management
Documentation of Innovative Pedagogical Approaches and Tools
© UNESCO/T. Siribodhi
Innovations as Inspiration in Asia-Pacific Early Childhood Care and Education Teaching
UNESCO Bangkok project to document and showcase effective approaches to learning in children’s crucial formative years
“Teachers are the main determinants of quality pre-primary education provision” (EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2015).
Children learn best when early childhood care and education (ECCE) is child-centred, play-based and collaborative; however, for this approach to be effective, ECCE teachers and practitioners must have the skills and tools needed to make it a reality. Too often that is not the case for resource-strapped educators operating in challenging environments throughout Asia-Pacific.
In these cases, innovation can make a transformative difference and that is why UNESCO Bangkok and key partners are implementing the project “Innovations for improving the equity and quality of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in Asia and the Pacific”.
The project seeks to determine what innovative ECCE approaches are being used in the region and how they can enhance the principles of inclusion and equity in ECCE that are the cornerstone of our new global education agenda.
The core focus of the project will be the documentation of innovative and effective pedagogical approaches and tools in ECCE, with the aim of showcasing and disseminating practices that are unique to the Asia and the Pacific region. Examples of possible approaches include:
- Interactive approaches to facilitating and extending children’s learning in a specific social, cultural or physical context;
- Approaches with the potential to strengthen the capacity of teachers, practitioners and/or caregivers;
- Approaches whose process of implementation can be documented in order to inform others about how to incorporate/adapt them in their own contexts.
The project will provide early childhood educators or practitioners working with communities and families with inspiration, ideas and guidance on how they can implement these innovative approaches.
The documentation is being carried out by UNESCO Bangkok and the Asia-Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), with participation of the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) and Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA) as well as the World Organization for Early Childhood Education (OMEP). This two-year project is funded by the Japanese Funds-in-Trust.
List of cases to be documented
- Kaede Kindergarten: Play Makes Us Human (Japan)
- Education for children of migrant labour (India)
- Child-based Community Center (India)
- Curriculum and Community in Early Years Aboriginal Education (Australia)
- Empowering Local People to support ECD in Solomon Islands (Solomon Islands)
- Sihuan Play group, a community-based non-formal pre-school education (China)
- Te Puna Reo o Nga Kakano (New Zealand)
- Educate the Future (Nepal)
- Mother tongue based ECCE programme (Thailand)
- Broadclass – listen to learn (Pakistan)
