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This UNESCO study provides a global overview and an analysis of the adoption of legal provisions for free and compulsory pre-primary education at national level. The analysis, prepared by UNESCO in cooperation with the ‘Right to Education Initiative’, is based on research carried out on qualitative data for 193 UNESCO Member States conducted by UNESCO, and complemented by in-depth research on 17 countries carried out by the ‘Right to Education Initiative’.

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Early childhood, defined as the period from birth to eight years old, is a crucial time for the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional growth of children. Access to quality early childhood care and education (ECCE), therefore, can be vital in laying the foundations for children’s long-term development, well-being, learning, and health. Despite this, universal and equitable access to free, quality, and compulsory pre-primary education is one of the major education challenges. One out of two children does not receive pre-primary education. While access to quality pre-primary education is inadequate globally, the opportunities for pre-primary education are drastically restricted for migrant children. Significant inequalities exist between migrant and local-born children in terms of quality access to pre-primary education.

This brief focuses on some of the important issues related to young migrant children’s access to ECCE and pre-primary education, and the key challenges in the existing legal framework.  It further proposes to strengthen the legal framework and policy development for the inclusion of ECCE in-migrant response strategies.

The efficient design and delivery of early childhood policies and services are critical to ensuring long-term learning opportunities and improved learning, behaviour, employment, and health outcomes amongst individuals. Research in neuroscience, developmental psychology and cognitive science has revealed that quality early childhood education, supportive communities and a positive family environment serve as important building blocks to promote healthy development amongst infants and toddlers.

The World Health Organization identified the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, and by February 2021, two-thirds of LMICs were reported to have reduced their public education budgets (Education Finance Watch Report, 2021). Although many challenges to achieving full access to quality early childhood services existed before the pandemic, this finding dramatically reveals how the pandemic threatens to erode hard won gains already achieved for children and families, and could continue to have exceedingly negative impacts on child development, early learning, family well-being and all types of early childhood services.

The Global Partnership Strategy (GPS) for Early Childhood was created to counter this negative trend in education and to overcome the reduction and closure of services for health, nutrition, sanitation, and child protection in all world regions. Well designed and implemented policies and services for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and Early Childhood Development (ECD) enable all countries to protect and guarantee child rights, achieve high rates of return on their investments in child and family development and widen avenues for transforming societies and lives. 

Dans le présent rapport, le Rapporteur spécial sur les droits de l’homme et l’extrême pauvreté, Olivier De Schutter, constate que les enfants nés dans des familles défavorisées ne peuvent prétendre à l’égalité des chances : les perspectives qu’ils ont de jouir d’un niveau de vie décent à l’âge adulte sont en effet considérablement réduites du simple fait que leurs parents sont pauvres.

Le Rapporteur spécial examine les mécanismes qui perpétuent la pauvreté dans les domaines de la santé, du logement, de l’éducation et de l’emploi. La montée des inégalités est en soi un facteur déterminant : plus les sociétés sont inégales, moins elles permettent la mobilité sociale, et la répartition inégale des richesses a un effet particulièrement dévastateur à cet égard. Nous pouvons parfaitement mettre fin au cercle vicieux de la pauvreté. La solution, pour ce faire, passe par des investissements dans les secteurs de l’éducation et de la protection de la petite enfance, ainsi que dans l’éducation inclusive, par l’instauration d’un revenu minimum universel pour les jeunes combinée à une hausse des droits de succession, et par l’interdiction de la discrimination fondée sur les désavantages socio-économiques.

Les personnes en situation de pauvreté font face à une discrimination généralisée dans des sociétés où la ségrégation par la richesse reste très marquée ; aussi des mesures de nature systémique s’imposent-elles pour surmonter les divisions héritées du passé.

 

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En el presente informe, el Relator Especial sobre la extrema pobreza y los derechos humanos, Olivier De Schutter, observa que a los niños nacidos en familias desfavorecidas se les niega la igualdad de oportunidades: sus posibilidades de alcanzar un nivel de vida decente en la edad adulta disminuyen considerablemente por el mero hecho de que sus padres sean pobres. El Relator Especial examina los canales a través de los cuales se perpetúa la pobreza, en los ámbitos de la salud, la vivienda, la educación y el empleo.

El propio aumento de las desigualdades es un factor importante: cuanto más desiguales son las sociedades, menos permiten la movilidad social, y las desigualdades de riq ueza son especialmente corrosivas en ese sentido. Acabar con los círculos viciosos de la pobreza está a nuestro alcance. Las inversiones en educación y atención a la primera infancia, la educación inclusiva, la provisión de una renta básica universal para los jóvenes, combinada con una mayor fiscalidad de las herencias, y la prohibición de la discriminación por motivos de desventaja socioeconómica son fundamentales para romper los ciclos que perpetúan la pobreza. Las personas en situación de pobreza se enfrentan a una discriminación sistémica en sociedades que siguen estando profundamente segregadas por la riqueza: esto exige remedios sistémicos para superar las divisiones heredadas.

 

ENGLISH  FRANÇAIS

This report, presented to the 76th session of the General Assembly in October 2021, examines the channels through which poverty is perpetuated, in the areas of health, housing, education and employment. The growth of inequalities itself is an important contributing factor: the more unequal societies are, the less they allow for social mobility. The report argues that ending the vicious cycles of poverty is within reach. Investments in early childhood education and care, inclusive education, the provision of a universal basic income for young people combined with an increased taxation of inheritance, and the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of socioeconomic disadvantage are key to breaking the cycles that perpetuate poverty. People in poverty face systemic discrimination in societies that remain deeply segregated by wealth: this calls for systemic remedies to overcome inherited divisions.

It features sections on the right to education in relation to poverty, including the right to early childhood care and education, and higher education. 

 

ESPAÑOL   FRANÇAIS

 

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This Right to Education Initiative brief explores ECCE related content from the reports of UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Education published between 1999 and 2021. 

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The present report is submitted to the General Assembly pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 8/4 and 44/3. In the report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Koumbou Boly Barry, considers early childhood care and education (ECCE) from a human rights-based perspective, reflecting the multisectoral needs of children and their caregivers.

ECCE combines the education and care requirements of children from birth to 8 years of age. The concept demonstrates that the right to education is indivisible from the rights to health, housing, food, water and sanitation, as well as cultural rights, among others. While the importance of ECCE has been widely recognized in humanitarian and developmental fields, it has been insufficiently codified in human rights law. The Special Rapporteur considers the human rights-based aspects of ECCE and recommends the creation of a human rights instrument on ECCE.

 

FRANÇAIS     ESPAÑOL     ARABIC

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ا هـــذا التا م ةلت الرمالـــق اللـــامـــق عماإل جا ا لي مرلس حاوق اإلنســ ـ ـ ــ ـ ـ ـ ـاي ُ .3/44 و 4/8 و التا م ، نظ الما لة اليا ــق الملنلق جالح التلللم، كومبو بول جالي، مســعلق ال عا ق والت بلق م حلق الطفولق المبك ة من منظول قائم علت حاوق اإلنســ ـ ـاي، مما لكس ااحتلاجات المتلدطة الاطاعات لألطفال ومادم ال عا ق لهم. و رمع ال عـا ـق والت بلـق م حلـق الطفولـق المبك ة بحن احتلـاجـات األطفـال من ال عـا ـق والت بلـق منـذ الواطة وحتت ســـن الثامنق. ومبحن هذا المفهوا أي الح التلللم ا ينفصـــم عن الح الصـــحق والســـكن والغذاء والملاه وخدمات الصــ ــ ب الصــ ــح ، ضــ ــاإل عن الحاوق الثااخلق، من بحن حاوق أخ . وعلت ال م من أي أهملق ال عا ق والت بلق م حلق الطفولق المبك ة حظت جاعت اب واسـع النطاق المرالحن اإلنسـان والنمائ ، إنها لم دوي جشــ ــكا كاب قانوي حاوق اإلنســ ــاي. و نظ الما لة اليا ــ ــق جوان ال عا ق والت بلق م حلق الطفولق المبك ة الت ا ع حاوق اإلنسـ ـاي و و ـ ـ بولـ ـع ـ ـا لحاوق اإلنسـ ـاي جشـ ـعي ال عا ق والت بلق م حلق الطفولق المبك ة.

 

ENGLISH     ESPAÑOL    FRANÇAIS

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