Regional Early Childhood Policy Review

The UNESCO-UNICEF joint regional policy review project was launched in September 2006 with the aim to support the countries of Asia-Pacific region in meeting the first goal of Education For All (EFA) on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) by identifying, documenting and sharing good practices as well as constraints and challenges in early childhood policy development and implementation. To this joint call for a policy review initiative, nine countries of the Asia-Pacific region responded, namely, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Viet Nam. The specific project goals were: (1) To support national governments in developing and implementing policies related to young children and their families; (2) To build national capacities in preparing policies that support the development, delivery and access to quality, early childhood services and provisions; (3) To develop knowledge about policy and identify a resource base to function as reference for policy makers, including justification and foundation for early childhood (in their countries); and (4) To share experiences and perspectives in policy development and implementation within and among countries on early childhood services/provisions. This paper describes the policy review process and recommendations on how similar policy reviews can be carried out in other countries/regions. (Contains 1 footnote.)