Abstract
Early childhood care and development is finding its way onto policy-making agendas around the world today,. Western and Developing Nations now realise their crucial impact on attitudes, school performance and behaviour throughout life, especially since the 1990 Convention on the rights of the child. Notably, this important dimension of Education For All (EA) still suffers from relative neglect. The purpose of this paper is to probe the role of Non-Governmental Organisations in promoting and sustaining EFA 2000. With this in mind, the paper is set to address the following aspects of EFA 2000: (i) the impending factors to EFA 2000; (ii) the value of early childhood intervention programmes; and (iii) the importance of partnership in its planning, implementation and evaluation.
The 1990 Jomtien Conference in Context
The Jomtien Conference of 1990 in Thailand placed education at the top of the international agenda. This was an attempt to halt the decline in basic education which had taken place during the 1 980s when many countries were forced to cut down on expenditure in education due to debt repayments and lower export earnings. The Jomtien Conference was sponsored by UNESCO, UNDP, UNICEF and the World Bank. Subsequently, the UN Sponsoring Agency, UNFPA became the fifth Sponsoring Agency after the Conference.
One would be impressed right from the outset that 1 55 governments, 33 intergovernmental bodies and 125 NGOs committedthemselves atthis Conference to the principle that "every person - child, youth and adult - shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to meet their learning needs" (Martin 2000 p.4). In essence, Jomtien marked the emergence of an international consensus that education is the most single vital element in fighting against poverty, empowering women, promoting human rights and democracy, protecting the environment and controlling population growth.
The Education For All Forum was established as an international mechanism for continuing consultation over Early Childhood Education and Care and broadly, basic education. The UNESCO Paris based secretariat was the brain behind this initiative and operation. From 1988-1999, we have seen a frenzy of activity as most countries who endorsed their signatures on the Jomtien, Thailand document endeavoured to come up with statistical information needed to measure the progress towards the Jomtien, goals. More than 180 countries took part in the most in-depth evaluation of basic education ever undertaken.
There is no doubt that there has been tremendous progress in primary enrolments even (in the E9 group) which happen to be the most populated developing nations. Regrettably in an effort to push primary enrolments up, quality has suffered. As a result of this, two things were observed by Ordonez (2000):
"... that mainstream education cannot hope to address all learning needs and must be accompanied by alternative tailor-made, nonformal learning methods.
"... that inscribing children in a formal system does not guarantee that their learning needs for the future will be met"(p.4)
The Foundations of Early Childhood Education
The 1990 Jomtien World Congress advocated for Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD). What it means is that the world's youngest children became a global agenda for Education For All by 2000. It is common knowledge that learning begins at birth, this therefore calls for early childhood care and initial eduction. Naturally, one would expect that, families, communities, governmental and non-governmental or institutional programmes are the appropriate agencies which can facilitate the provision of such education. A decade has now passed, one may be pursued to ask what has so far happened to the Jomtien Vision on EFA?
In a report presented to the World Conference in Dakar, Senegal one of the founder members of the consultative group on Early Childhood Care and Development, Myers (2000) pointed out that there were a few cases of dramatic growth in some countries of the Caribbean, Latin America in South East Asia, but for most, the increased enrolment for the age group of (0-8 years) had increased at the rate of 25%. While this may be taken to be a generalised position of early childhood education enrolments, it must be realised that every country has different circumstances to deal with. For example, a serious decline was noted in countries of the former Soviet Union where transition to a market-based economy, decentralisation and civil strife disrupted extensive high quality early childhood care and development programmes.
Many developing countries continue to reflect on urban and economic bias, thus more children in rural communities, from low - income groups and from traditional rural communities do not yet have access to ECCD programmes. Further, there is apparently a dominant focus on ECCD as a preparation for formal schooling as demonstrated by increased enrolments for children aged 4-6 as against 0-3 group which are relevant to the community. Obviously these require more attention.
ECCD is surprisingly still being given low priority especially when countries experience economic difficulties and/or political crisis. In the words of Myers (2000): "the scant evidence suggests that government funding for ECCD is very low (often less than 2% of the total education budget) in most of African, the Middle East, the Caribbean and parts of Asia, the major responsibility for ECCD is left to families, communities and non-governmental organisations "(p.12).
Further evidence shows that while donors are critical of policies which favour military expenditure to the detriment of ECCD, it is they who encourage demand for their military exports. For example, the industrialised nations accounted for 97% of major conventional arms exports in 1997 (Furstenberg, 2000). Developing countries accounted just for under three quarters of the imports. This means investment in ECCD is sacrificed, resulting in lost growth and exacerbated inequalities. It may be worth examining military expenditure of some selected countries to the detriment of ECCD:
Although figures on the military expenditure for Zimbabwe, Uganda, Namibia and Angola on Democratic Republic of Congo DRC campaign are not immediately available, it is expected that there is more expenditure on this campaign than on education.
This scenario is discouraging especially if and when one considers the fact that the benefits of early childhood care, education and development are well documented. ECCD provides a foundation for life long learning and creates an entry point for broader community development efforts. For example, in Bolivia, the World Bank report on the "Integrated Project of Early Childhood" stated that 40% of children who initially enrol show stunted psycho-social development. However, after one year in the programme, this was reduced to 20% and after two years, it was cut down to 5% (Baustisia, 2000). This suggests that if non-formal, home-based day care centres are provided with food, health and cognitive development services, primary school enrolments for children from learning centres at the age of six could increase tremendously as a result of the direct result of the improvements in the children's health and nutrition levels.
Notably, it is equally important for parents to be aware of benefits of the early childhood intervention programmes and also actively participate in their planning, implementation and evaluation. With regard to girls, it must be pointed out that the greater the chances of exposure to early childhood intervention programmes, the better the chances of formal schooling. This being the case, the beneficial impact is expected to decrease infant mortality and thereby reduce fertility rates.
Whilst the competition by various state organs for national material and financial resources is greater than ever before, early childhood intervention programmes must be viewed as a viable preventative measure, and not as something that can wait until all other Education For All goals have been met. In view of this, governments must make the necessary commitment to young children with the necessary policies regulatory frameworks and sufficient resources to meet the early childhood education goals. It is the responsibility of governments to nurture effective partnerships that truly share the burden with families and civil society rather than pass on the burdens to parents and NGOs.
Who contributes to EFA's implementation?
The world over, statistics show that around 63% of the cost of Education For All is met by governments, 35% by a combination of different groups including parents, NGOs and business and the remaining 2% from overseas and programmes (World Education Report 2000). Developed countries with better tax systems have more money to put into eduction than poor nations who mostly rely on other partners. In Cambodia, for example, the nominally public education receives 12%. A study on partnership for EFA 2000 nonetheless indicated that while community and other involvement can be highly effective, it is not necessarily a panacea to all ills (Bray, 2000).
Similarly, school fees are considered by some rural and poor communities to be the single most important barrier to pre-school educational access, while others feel that fees are a way to mobilise resources for early childhood centres from those who can afford to pay.
There has obviously been a paradigm shift in the way the international community looks at the question of funding for early childhood programmes Bush (2000) reports that the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 stated that "education shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages" (p.7). It can be concluded that the fundamental stages being referred to here are early childhood intervention programmes where the government, parents and non-governmental organisations can contribute materially, financially and psychologically. In the same vein, the discussion at Jomtien ten years ago noted that free education provided by government alone is often of insufficient quality to benefit the individual child.
Conclusion
Meeting the Jomtien document goals requires many actors pulling in the same direction. It is incredibly important that all players are implicated. China's solution of running government and community funded early childhood education systems side by side in rural areas, a policy called "walking on two legs" is henceforth recommended. Innovative partnerships such as these seem to be the best way forward.
Indeed, the EFA process has brought better understanding of the issues facing educators. These shifts in thinking have taken place against massive social upheavals. For example, in 1990 the year the Jomtien Conference took place, Nelson Mandela was still in jail, the Soviet Union was still hanging on to the Baltic States, African's Great Lakes region and the Balkans were still intact. The spread of HIV/AIDS was referred to as "epidemic", not "pandemic" as it is now called. Financial crisis in several parts of the world were unforseen. Globalization and the information technology revolution were in their early days.
There is no doubt that education needs new life and the utmost verve to meet the challenges that have emerged over the last decade for there can be no comprise on ultimate goals; there can be no compromise either on the fact that education is a human right which all nations must meet without fail particularly early childhood education which is crucial to the social, psychological and cultural development of the child. The biggest education conference ever organised took place in Dakar, Senegal in April 2000 to measure progress and pitfalls of the ten years of effort in response to the Jomtien Conference. It remains to be seen as to whether or not any progress has been made.
References
Bray, M & Bush, A.T (2000) who pays for Education Sources UNESCO, Paris.
Bautista, F & Myers, R (2000) Early Childhood: the Foundations. Sources: UNESCO, Paris.
Furstenberg, C.V.(2000) How globalisation has changed the playing field. Sources. UNESCO, Paris.
Martin, A.L. (2000) Education For All: Ten years after Jomtien. Sources: UNESCO, Paris.
Oxfam (2000) International Education November Report. UNESCO, Paris.
World Education Report (2000) The right to education: Towards Education for All throughout life. UNESCO, Paris.
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