The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre had just published its latest annual report card. These are a series if publications focussing on the topic of child wellbeing in industrialised countries. The latest report is entitled Children of the Recession, and examines how the ongoing economic crisis has impacted on children. As always, the report is very detailed and paints a complex picture, though the headline claim has been the finding that child poverty has increased in 23 countries since 2008.
The full text of the report is available here. Full access to all of the previous reports in the series is available here.
Showing posts with label International Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Resources. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Tuesday, 19 November 2013
The Early Years: an International Perspective
Tonight's #EYTalking topic on Twitter (see previous post for details) is all about sharing ideas and suggestions on what an international e-portal devoted to early years might look like. This follows a recent post on June O'Sullivan's blog outlining the reasons why such a site would be useful. So today's post attempts to draw together some of the most useful existing sites and recent reports to help you learn about early years practices from an international perspective.
You could do a lot worse than starting with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is the most widely ratified human rights convention in history, and can be accessed online either in full text, or a summary version is also available. You may also want to look at a UNICEF study from last year, which studied how the Convention has been legally implemented in 12 countries.
Looking at the topic from a European perspective for a moment, the Eurydice website has a page devoted to Early Childhood Education and Care which will give you some basic information on the early years setup in 36 different countries. On a similar note, the organisation has information on Compulsory Age of Starting School in European Countries. Still on a European note, earlier this year the European Commission published a report entitled Childcare Services forSchool Age Children: a Comparative Review of 33 Countries, and their 2009 report - Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities through Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe - may also be of interest.
Looking further afield, the International Bureau of Education recently published a fantastic resource entitled Early Childhood Care & Education and the Curriculum: a List of Resources, which pulls together links to all sorts of early years documents from around the globe. The OECD also has a page devoted to Early Childhood and Schools, and its series of reports entitled Quality Matters in Early Childhood and Care should also be of interest. The Bernard van Leer Foundation website is another place worth visiting for information on all sorts of childhood issues.
There have been quite a few reports from various other organisations over the last few years which could also prove interesting. It might just be easier if I list these!
You could do a lot worse than starting with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is the most widely ratified human rights convention in history, and can be accessed online either in full text, or a summary version is also available. You may also want to look at a UNICEF study from last year, which studied how the Convention has been legally implemented in 12 countries.
Looking at the topic from a European perspective for a moment, the Eurydice website has a page devoted to Early Childhood Education and Care which will give you some basic information on the early years setup in 36 different countries. On a similar note, the organisation has information on Compulsory Age of Starting School in European Countries. Still on a European note, earlier this year the European Commission published a report entitled Childcare Services forSchool Age Children: a Comparative Review of 33 Countries, and their 2009 report - Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities through Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe - may also be of interest.
Looking further afield, the International Bureau of Education recently published a fantastic resource entitled Early Childhood Care & Education and the Curriculum: a List of Resources, which pulls together links to all sorts of early years documents from around the globe. The OECD also has a page devoted to Early Childhood and Schools, and its series of reports entitled Quality Matters in Early Childhood and Care should also be of interest. The Bernard van Leer Foundation website is another place worth visiting for information on all sorts of childhood issues.
There have been quite a few reports from various other organisations over the last few years which could also prove interesting. It might just be easier if I list these!
- DfE (2013) A Comparison of International Childcare Systems
- International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (2013) Quality Education for All Children? What Works in Education in Developing Countries
- Scottish Government (2013) Early Childhood Education and Care Provision: International Review of Policy, Delivery and Funding
- Economist Intelligence Unit (2012) Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across the World
- DECET (2012) Diversity and Social Inclusion: Exploring Competences for Professional Practice in Early Childhood Education and Care
- CfBT (2010) An International Perspective on Integrated Children’s Services
Friday, 25 October 2013
International Reports
3 separate recently published international reports have popped up in my feeds today, which seems as good an excuse as any for a themed blog post.
- The European Commission has published Childcare Services for School Aged Children, which compares provision across 33 different countries.
- On a similar note, the Commission has also recently updated The Structure of the European Education Systems, which provides an easy to view breakdown of the different systems in use across the continent.
- The International Initiative for Impact Evaluation has just published Quality Education for All Children? What Works in Education in Developing Countries.
Tuesday, 16 July 2013
New from Department for Education
It's obviously a busy day at the Department for Education - it's only 10 o'clock and already they've released a number of research reports and other documents. There are too many to list here, so here are some of the highlights:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications.atom?departments[]=department-for-education
- A Comparison of International Childcare Systems attempts to identify patterns between different preschool approaches and later educational outcomes.
- Parents' Views and Experiences of Childcare reports on a telephone survey of parents and makes suggestions as to how provision can be improved.
- Evidence to Inform the Childcare Commission is made up of 3 separate reports of information submitted to the Childcare Commission since its establishment in June 2012.
- Finally, the DfE has opened a new consultation on childcare regulation; if you'd like to contribute then here's the link, responses will be received until the end of September.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications.atom?departments[]=department-for-education
Friday, 5 July 2013
Learning Begins Early
I've written about the Bernard van Leer Foundation on this site before (see previous post). Now the latest issue of their Early Childhood Matters magazine has been released, and carries the title Learning Begins Early. Inside you'll find articles focusing on learning from birth to three, with examples and case studies from around the world. You can download the issue for free from this link.
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Education At A Glance 2013
Today sees the publication of the latest edition of the OECD's annual Education At A Glance
report. This is a huge document, comparing a mass of information on
education provision in dozens of different countries, from preschool
right up to University level.
The full report can be downloaded here, though at 440 pages long you'd be forgiven for waiting for the 'Highlights' version which is promised shortly. There's a whole mini-website devoted to further supplementary documents and videos etc, while regular readers of this blog will probably be most interested in the 10 page United Kingdom Country Note, which summarises domestic education provision at this time.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
The full report can be downloaded here, though at 440 pages long you'd be forgiven for waiting for the 'Highlights' version which is promised shortly. There's a whole mini-website devoted to further supplementary documents and videos etc, while regular readers of this blog will probably be most interested in the 10 page United Kingdom Country Note, which summarises domestic education provision at this time.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
Thursday, 30 May 2013
The State of the World's Children
Today sees the publication of The State of the World's Children 2013, the latest annual edition of UNICEF's flagship report which examines key issues for children around the globe. The theme for this year's report is disability, and examines the barriers which can deprive children with disabilities of their rights
and keep them from participating fully in society.
You can read the full report by clicking here. For further supporting documents and film clips you can visit the report's official site, while access to previous year's reports is available here.
You can read the full report by clicking here. For further supporting documents and film clips you can visit the report's official site, while access to previous year's reports is available here.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Early Childhood Care & Education - International Resources.
In a similar vein to yesterday's post, this entry is all about international education. The International Bureau of Education has recently released a *fantastic* new publication entitled Early Childhood Care & Education and the Curriculum: a List of Resources. And it does what it says on the tin really - it's just 27 pages of links to important documents relating to early years provision around the world, so whatever country you're interested in, there's almost certainly going to be at least one item here that you can use!
The drawback is that some of the linked items are not actually written in English, but there's certainly more than enough included to keep most researchers happy. That's the sales talk over, click on this link to have a look.
The drawback is that some of the linked items are not actually written in English, but there's certainly more than enough included to keep most researchers happy. That's the sales talk over, click on this link to have a look.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Childcare in France
If you've picked up a newspaper or watched the news in the last couple of days, then you're probably aware that the childcare minister Elizabeth Truss has made some comments regarding 'chaotic' British nurseries, and argued that an approach with parallels to the French childcare system would be more beneficial. It's probably safe to say that the reaction from the early years sector in this country has been largely negative, but how does childcare in France compare to what's on offer in the UK? I decided to see what I could find out...
For a quick, easy summary of the French system, there's an excellent Nursery World article from a couple of months back which gives an overview of issues such as ratios, staff qualifications etc. You can also look at the Eurypedia page relating to early childhood education and care, and the Country Note for France from the most recent OECD Education at a Glance report gives an overview of educational provision there as a whole - most of the material relating to pre-primary education can be found on the first 3 pages. The French childcare model is also the subject of a short BBC news report today.
After that, it quickly became difficult to find useful items which focused specifically on France (though if you can speak French, then here's the link for what appears to be a detailed overview of the French system), but there are plenty of documents available which compare the early years sector in many countries, with the UK and France among the countries surveyed.
What does become clear is that most of the reports available tend to focus on easily comparable statistics such as amount of funding, staff ratios, cost of childcare etc, rather than attempting to describe the quality of the provision on offer. A useful 2010 OECD paper entitled Quality of Childcare and Early Education Services perhaps partially explains this by stating that "The quality of formal childcare and early education services is difficult to measure as there is no single indicator which adequately reflects the quality of service environment and the quality of interaction between staff and children."
Nevertheless, the 2012 report Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across the World attempts to compile a league table of preschool quality - interestingly, the UK is ranked 3 places ahead of France. It's also worth having a look at The Child Care Transition: A League Table of Early Childhood Education and Care in Economically Advanced Countries - this is a UNICEF report from 2008 which rated French provision ahead of what is available in the UK.
And a couple of other items to finish - you might want to read Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe: Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities, which is a 2009 Eurydice report offering detailed information on early years provision in many different countries. Or you could just look at the recent More Great Childcare proposal from the government, which mentions 'France' 25 times in just 46 pages. And by the time you've finished that lot, you'll hopefully have made up your mind about the minister's ideas...
For a quick, easy summary of the French system, there's an excellent Nursery World article from a couple of months back which gives an overview of issues such as ratios, staff qualifications etc. You can also look at the Eurypedia page relating to early childhood education and care, and the Country Note for France from the most recent OECD Education at a Glance report gives an overview of educational provision there as a whole - most of the material relating to pre-primary education can be found on the first 3 pages. The French childcare model is also the subject of a short BBC news report today.
After that, it quickly became difficult to find useful items which focused specifically on France (though if you can speak French, then here's the link for what appears to be a detailed overview of the French system), but there are plenty of documents available which compare the early years sector in many countries, with the UK and France among the countries surveyed.
What does become clear is that most of the reports available tend to focus on easily comparable statistics such as amount of funding, staff ratios, cost of childcare etc, rather than attempting to describe the quality of the provision on offer. A useful 2010 OECD paper entitled Quality of Childcare and Early Education Services perhaps partially explains this by stating that "The quality of formal childcare and early education services is difficult to measure as there is no single indicator which adequately reflects the quality of service environment and the quality of interaction between staff and children."
Nevertheless, the 2012 report Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across the World attempts to compile a league table of preschool quality - interestingly, the UK is ranked 3 places ahead of France. It's also worth having a look at The Child Care Transition: A League Table of Early Childhood Education and Care in Economically Advanced Countries - this is a UNICEF report from 2008 which rated French provision ahead of what is available in the UK.
And a couple of other items to finish - you might want to read Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe: Tackling Social and Cultural Inequalities, which is a 2009 Eurydice report offering detailed information on early years provision in many different countries. Or you could just look at the recent More Great Childcare proposal from the government, which mentions 'France' 25 times in just 46 pages. And by the time you've finished that lot, you'll hopefully have made up your mind about the minister's ideas...
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Child Well-Being in Rich Countries
UNICEF are in the headlines today following the publication of their latest 'Report Card' which examines the well-being of children in industrialised countries. The new publication ranks the UK 16th out of 29 developed countries for overall wellbeing, although it also suggests that children's lives have improved since a similar UNICEF report in 2007.
If you'd like to read the full report, you can do so by clicking here; a summary version containing the key messages is also available. For further reading, you may want to look at this opinion article or the full list of previous UNICEF report cards, while only last week the Office of National Statistics published its own short report: Children's Well-Being, 2013. Or you could view all previous posts on this site relating to children's well-being by clicking here.
If you'd like to read the full report, you can do so by clicking here; a summary version containing the key messages is also available. For further reading, you may want to look at this opinion article or the full list of previous UNICEF report cards, while only last week the Office of National Statistics published its own short report: Children's Well-Being, 2013. Or you could view all previous posts on this site relating to children's well-being by clicking here.
Friday, 14 December 2012
Review of 2012
If it’s nearly Christmas, it must be time for the annual round-up of major
developments and new research published in the children’s sector during the
last year. After all, you might have missed some of these the first time round…
The
one thing that all practitioners and students can’t have missed was the
introduction of the new EYFS in September. You can get quick links to the new
EYFS and supporting documentation from this previous post, while the recent
release of the new Profile Handbook and further materials are dealt with here.
On a similar note, at the same time a new set of EYPS standards were introduced
for those hoping to achieve the status.
The
other large story of the year was the Nutbrown Review, which investigated the
current system of early education and childcare qualifications. You can read
the final report and other supporting documents from this link.
Annual
reports from well known organisations are also a handy way of gauging current
issues surrounding the sector. Some of the most useful ones from this year
include the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey and the Ofsted Annual Report, while for a more international flavour try UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2012 or the OECD’s Education at a Glance.
A
few themes seemed to emerge when looking back at publications from the last
year: certainly the cost of childcare for families was discussed in a number of
reports by different organisations, such as the Resolution Foundation's Counting the Costs of Childcare, CPAG's
The Cost of a Child in the Twenty-First Century, and the Family & Parenting Institute's Families on the FrontLine.
Linked
to this is the never ending stream of reports into child poverty – just a few
that were published this year were Save the Children’s It Shouldn’t Happen Here,
CPAG’s Ending Child Poverty by 2020, and UNICEF’s Measuring Child Poverty,
which compared the situation in the UK with other developed nations.
Another
theme was the growing interest in outdoor play and the benefits which this can
have for children. In March the National Trust’s Natural Childhood report made
a big contribution to this debate, or you can read this previous post from
September which provides links to plenty of the recent research in this area.
And
a personal selection of interesting / useful stories and publications from the
last year… Back in January the Children’s Society published the Good Childhood Report 2012; in June the Save Childhood movement was launched; also in June the
Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across the World report was
published; and November saw the publication of Men Working in Childcare, a
useful contribution to a topic about which I get a lot of enquiries.
A
bit more? For research ideas you could do a lot worse than look at Education on the Web, an excellent research guide from the NFER. Or you could look at this
post on Open Access Research for Childhood / Education, which has attracted a
lot of site visitors from search engines in recent months. Or you could look at
Social Bookmarking: an Essential Tool for Dissertation Students, an article published
on Kathy Brodie’s website back in June (you may recognise the author!).
If
there’s anything significant from the last 12 months that you think I’ve
missed, do leave a comment below to let other site users know about it. If you’re
a regular visitor here you’ll know I’m a fan of archive films, so get in the
festive spirit by enjoying the short clip below from 1946, which includes
sleeping children, toys that come alive, and… oh, just watch it! Merry
Christmas…
Friday, 7 December 2012
European Education Systems
A lot of students ask for information about childcare / education in other countries, so today's featured link should be useful to some site users - it's simply a brief leaflet with easy-to-understand diagrams of the education systems in each of the EU member states, very handy if you want a quick guide to a particular country! To have a look, click here, or to list all of my blog posts dealing with international resources then click this link.
Friday, 23 November 2012
New Research
A quick round-up of various new reports:
- The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: a Study of Legal Implementation in 12 Countries is a new publication from UNICEF which examines how the UK compares to other countries in providing for children's rights at national level.
- First Steps is a report from the CBI which sets out an agenda for education reform from a business perspective.
- Facing the Screen Dilemma: Young Children, Technology and Early Education examines how new technologies could be having an effect on children's development.
- Pupils not Claiming Free School Meals has just been published by the Department of Education, and attempts to establish how many children who are entitled to free school dinners are not taking advantage.
- What is the Research Evidence on Writing? gathers together literature on pupils' writing ability, with the authors claiming that this is an area which receives less attention than reading ability.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Bernard van Leer Foundation
The Bernard van Leer Foundation is an international organisation with a mission to "improve opportunities for children up to age 8 who are growing up in socially and economically difficult circumstances." While I've previously linked to the occasional report on their site, I thought that as it's a slow news day, it might be worth drawing attention to some of the resources available on their website, all of which are free to access.
From a research point of view, the most interesting part of the site is the Publications area. You can search or browse through the various documents in a number of ways, though my personal preference would be to browse by series. Among the series that the Foundation publishes are a collection of Working Papers - recent topics covered include Children's Right to Play and Fostering Language Acquisition in Daycare Settings - and Early Childhood in Focus, which is published in collaboration with the Open University, and examines recent research on key policy issues. Recent titles in this series include Supporting Parenting and Effective Early Childhood Programmes. The biannual journal Early Childhood Matters is also worth a look.
If you'd prefer printed versions of the Foundation's publications, you may order up to five copies free of charge.
From a research point of view, the most interesting part of the site is the Publications area. You can search or browse through the various documents in a number of ways, though my personal preference would be to browse by series. Among the series that the Foundation publishes are a collection of Working Papers - recent topics covered include Children's Right to Play and Fostering Language Acquisition in Daycare Settings - and Early Childhood in Focus, which is published in collaboration with the Open University, and examines recent research on key policy issues. Recent titles in this series include Supporting Parenting and Effective Early Childhood Programmes. The biannual journal Early Childhood Matters is also worth a look.
If you'd prefer printed versions of the Foundation's publications, you may order up to five copies free of charge.
Monday, 22 October 2012
International Education
If you're looking for information on education in other countries, a really good starting point is the International Education Libguide from the IOE. The site serves as a gateway with links to useful education websites all around the world, and while some of the content is specific to users of the IOE Library, there is still plenty here to make it worth bookmarking for when you're researching an assignment on learning in Finland... or Singapore... or Angola...
Don't forget that you can view previous posts on here relating to international issues by clicking on the 'International Resources' link in the Hot Topics menu on the right. I also have a collection of bookmarks on international education which you may find useful.
Don't forget that you can view previous posts on here relating to international issues by clicking on the 'International Resources' link in the Hot Topics menu on the right. I also have a collection of bookmarks on international education which you may find useful.
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Education At A Glance 2012
Today sees the publication of the OECD's annual Education At A Glance report. This is a huge document, comparing a mass of information on education provision in dozens of different countries, from preschool right up to University level.
The full report can be downloaded here, though you'd be forgiven for heading straight for the summary version. In addition, there's an United Kingdom Country Note available, which provides a shorter analysis of education in the UK, and how it compares to other countries. Or for simple information on the headlines generated by the research, try looking at this Guardian article or this BBC article.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
The full report can be downloaded here, though you'd be forgiven for heading straight for the summary version. In addition, there's an United Kingdom Country Note available, which provides a shorter analysis of education in the UK, and how it compares to other countries. Or for simple information on the headlines generated by the research, try looking at this Guardian article or this BBC article.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
Starting Well
I'm a few days late with this one but those of you with an interest in how early years education is delivered in other countries may be a new publication from the Economist Intelligence Unit. The report is entitled Starting Well: Benchmarking Early Education Across the World, and ranks 45 nations into a league table on the basis of their preschool environments. The UK does pretty well, coming in at 4th place, though as always seems to be the case with these studies, the top positions are dominated by Scandinavian countries.
To view the full report, click here.
To view the full report, click here.
Monday, 16 April 2012
International Children's Services
I'm a few months behind with this one, but as I get plenty of enquiries about information on education and children's services in other countries, then this post should be useful to a lot of this site's readers.
C4EO has recently published Delivering Children’s Services in the UK and Other Parts of the World. This is a briefing paper which gives a simple overview of how policies surrounding children's services in the UK compare to other countries. In particular there is a focus on Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, as these countries are considered models of good practice. The briefing also serves as an excellent introduction as to how and why recent initiatives have been carried out.
To access the report, click here.
C4EO has recently published Delivering Children’s Services in the UK and Other Parts of the World. This is a briefing paper which gives a simple overview of how policies surrounding children's services in the UK compare to other countries. In particular there is a focus on Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, as these countries are considered models of good practice. The briefing also serves as an excellent introduction as to how and why recent initiatives have been carried out.
To access the report, click here.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
State of the World's Children 2012
UNICEF has just published The State of the World's Children 2012. This is their annual flagship report, and the theme for this year's edition focuses on the experience of childhood in an urban environment. Information found in the report includes detailed statistics about children in different countries, features on children's rights, data on education and nutrition, and much more.
The full report is available from this link. You may also find this accompanying site useful, which contains plenty of supporting documentation. And full versions of previous editions of the report are available here.
The full report is available from this link. You may also find this accompanying site useful, which contains plenty of supporting documentation. And full versions of previous editions of the report are available here.
Thursday, 15 September 2011
Education At A Glance 2011
One for the number crunchers today - the OECD has just published Education At A Glance 2011, its annual report comparing a mass of information on education in 34 different countries, from school right up to University level. A handy summary of much of the data is available from this link.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
For further information about education systems in different countries, the Eurydice and International Bureau of Education sites are well worth a visit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)