World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education
14-16 November 2022, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education will reaffirm the right of every young child to quality care and education from birth and urge Member States to renew and expand their commitment to and investment in ensuring that access of all girls and boys to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.
The period from birth to eight years old is one of remarkable brain development for children and represents a crucial window of opportunity for education. Globally, 75% of children were enrolled in pre-primary education one year before the official primary entry age in the school year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in sub-Saharan Africa and in Northern Africa and Western Asia the rate was about 50%.
The conference is hosted by the Republic of Uzbekistan and organized by UNESCO.
About
The World Conference has three main goals in the area of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE):
- To develop ambitious, relevant, and culturally appropriate policies
- To put in place effective and accountable systems, multi-stakeholder partnerships and services
- To increase and improve investment in this area as an essential and integral part of countries’ strategies for attaining lifelong learning societies and sustainable development.
Organization
The Conference is coordinated by two statutory Committees: the Organizing Committee (chaired by the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan together with the UNESCO Director-General as co-chair) and a Programme Committee chaired by UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education together with the Minister of Preschool Education of Uzbekistan as co-chair.
Participation
Over 1500 participants are expected to take part in the World Conference, which will provide an important forum for policy exchange and scale-up of proven programmes and innovations on ECCE across all regions and countries. Participation in the conference is by invitation only.
- More information on the registration
Early learning matters
Evidence shows that a child’s early years are critical for shaping their ability to learn and build a foundation for their future. UNESCO is organizing the World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education to fill in that gap and reaffirm the right of the child to quality ECCE from birth. This video prepared by Uzbekistan showcases the host country’s progress in early childhood learning programmes.
Consultations
UNESCO is undertaking a series of consultations prior to the World Conference.
- A consultation with Member States to take stock of existing national ECCE monitoring frameworks. The aim is to map the nature of ECCE data gathered by countries as an integral part of their national Education Management Information Systems (EMIS). The survey takes maximum 15 minutes to fill in. The due date for completion is 30 April 2022.
- Regional consultations are taking place in each of the five world regions. These regional consultations provided localized current key issues on ECCE in each region.
Calls for interest
UNESCO invites Members State, key partners, academia, civil society and private sector to participate in our calls for expression of interest to the different modalities of participation such as the elaboration of background documents, the presentation of a country case, the organization of a side event and participation in the exhibition area. The calls will be online and will be published very soon.
Publications
News
The Conference is hosted by the Republic of Uzbekistan
