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Open Research Online The Open University’s repository of research publications and other research outputs Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru Other How to cite: Woodhead, Martin; Ames, Patricia; Vennam, Uma; Abebe, Workneh and Streuli, Natalia (2009). Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru. Bernard van Leer Foundation, The Hague, Netherlands. For guidance on citations see FAQs. c 2009 Bernard van Leer Foundation Version: Version of Record Link(s) to article on publisher’s website: http://www.bernardvanleer.org/publications/browse_by_series/publications_results?SearchableText=Equity+and+Quality%3A+Challenges+for+Early+Childhood+and+Primary+Education+in+Ethiopia Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. oro.open.ac.uk WORKING PAPERS IN 55 Early Childhood Development Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru By Martin Woodhead, Patricia Ames, Uma Vennam, Workneh Abebe and Natalia Streuli STUDIES IN Early Childhood Transitions . Cover photo: © Young Lives / Raúl Egúsquiza Turriate (Lima, Peru) Photos inside: © Young Lives / members of the research team (Ethiopia, India, Peru) Design: Valetti, vormgeving en communicatie, The Hague, The Netherlands (www.valetti.nl) Editing and proofreading: Green Ink (www.greenink.co.uk) 55 WORKING PAPERS IN Early Childhood Development Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru By Martin Woodhead, Patricia Ames, Uma Vennam, Workneh Abebe and Natalia Streuli STUDIES IN Early Childhood Transitions November 2009 Copyright © 2009 by the Bernard van Leer Foundation, The Netherlands. The Bernard van Leer Foundation encourages fair use – except modifications – of this material. Proper citation is requested. This publication may not be resold for profit. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. About the authors Martin Woodhead is Professor of Childhood Studies at The Open University. He has been directing the Young Lives/ Bernard van Leer Foundation funded sub-study on early childhood transitions. His thirty-year research career has included a focus on early childhood development, education and care; including policy studies, extensive international work and numerous publications. Patricia Ames is a researcher at the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP). She leads the Young Lives qualitative research team in Peru. She holds a PhD in Anthropology of Education from the University of London. Her research has focused on issues of power, gender inequalities, ethnicity and multi-grade teaching, as well as literacy as social practice. Uma Vennam is a Professor of Social Work at Sri Padmavathi Women’s University, Tirupati, India. She leads the Young Lives qualitative research team in Andhra Pradesh. She holds a PhD from the University of East Anglia. Her research has focused on NGOs, rural poverty and development, and children in difficult situations. Workneh Abebe is a member of the Young Lives qualitative research team in Ethiopia. He has an MA in History from the University of Addis Ababa. Previously he worked for an NGO with orphans and vulnerable children throughout Ethiopia and as freelance researcher for the Wellbeing in Developing Countries Group (WeD). Natalia Streuli is a research assistant to the Young Lives team at the University of Oxford. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of London Institute of Education. Her research focuses on children’s views and experiences of well being and poverty in Peru, and the implications of social protection measures. Citation Woodhead, M., Ames, P., Vennam, U, Abebe, W. and Streuli, N. (2009) Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru. Working Paper No. 55, Studies in Early Childhood Transitions. The Hague, The Netherlands: Bernard van Leer Foundation ISSN 1383-7907 ISBN 978-90-6195-116-2 Contents Acknowledgements v Executive summary v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Education and early childhood: promises and realities 5 Chapter 2: Early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia 13 Chapter 3: Early childhood and primary education in Peru 29 Chapter 4: Early childhood and primary education in India (Andhra Pradesh) 51 Chapter 5: Towards a ‘positive agenda’ for early childhood 73 Appendix: Brief summary of data collection methods 83 References 87 vii Acknowledgements Young Lives is a 15-year longitudinal study of assistance with data analysis and to Gina Crivello childhood poverty, based at the Uni versity and Laura Camfield for their role in coordinating of Oxford’s Department of International Young Lives early transitions qualitative research. Development, and directed by Dr Jo Boyden. We also acknowledge the contribution of other Young Lives is core-funded by the UK Govern- country team members to the collection of case ment’s Department for International Develop- study material, including Yisak Tafere (Ethiopia), ment (DFID). Support for focused research on Anuradha Komanduri (Andhra Pradesh), and early transitions was provided by the Bernard Vanessa Rojas and Tamia Portugal (Peru). Further van Leer Foundation to the Open University, as information about Young Lives is available at: a Young Lives partner. We are especially grate- www.younglives.org.uk. ful to Lita Cameron and Karin Heissler for Executive summary The potential of quality early childhood care programmes. We ask which children do and and education (ECCE) to transform young which do not have access to an early childhood lives is increasingly recognised. Accounts of programme? We explore children’s and parents’ innovative and effective programmes have been views about the quality of what is on offer, as disseminated widely and endorsed by scientific these inform the choices they make, and their evidence as well as economic and human rights transition into the early grades of primary arguments. Reports about model programmes school. We explore these questions in rural and and the high returns on ECCE investments urban communities in majority world contexts provide crucial leverage in advocating for policy that don’t commonly feature in early childhood change and programme development. They research and publications. are also a source of inspiration to all who work with children and families. But they tell only The working paper is based on interviews part of the story. The focus of this paper is on and observations carried out as part of Young the many challenges that lie ahead in making Lives, a 15-year longitudinal study of children sure the potential of ECCE is being translated growing up in poverty in diverse contexts. Our into practice, through improvements in the research for this paper has focused on 6,000 everyday lives of young children and families. children in three of the countries in the study, Our starting point is what might be described Ethiopia, India and Peru. These children were as ‘the everyday ordinariness’ of most ECCE all around 6 years old in 2006/7, a key transition viii point for starting school. Studying experiences 58% of urban Young Lives children attending pre- and perspectives of Young Lives parents and school, but only 4% of rural children. children makes it possible to examine to what extent promises made for early childhood are Another way to look at these differentials is in being translated into practice, in terms of acces- relation to parent education levels. Thus, amongst sible, equitable, quality programmes. the Peru sample, virtually all children with highly educated mothers (more than 10 years of school) ECCE programmes play an increasing role in the have attended pre-school, whereas over 30% lives of the world’s children. 87% of the Young of children whose mothers have low levels of Lives sample of children in Andhra Pradesh education (0 to 4 years) will have begun first were reported as having attended pre-school at grade without any experience of a pre-school some point since their third birthday, and 84% programme. These trends risk perpetuating in Peru. It is only in Ethiopia that pre-school is intergenerational poverty and inequalities and a minority experience (just 25% of the sample). are the very opposite of internationally agreed But while programmes and services are growing policy priorities. Once the overall statistics are in numbers, the quality of these programmes and disaggregated, other inequalities in early oppor- equity of access is far less certain. Taking all types tunities are revealed, notably between children of provision together, children from the poorest in rural versus urban poverty, and between circumstances are under-represented in terms of government versus private education. attendance levels, while the more advantaged are over-represented. Equity appears closest to being Later chapters offer detailed analyses on these achieved in Andhra Pradesh, with less than 10% issues for Ethiopia, then Peru and finally Andhra difference in access levels between the ‘poorest’ Pradesh. Evidence on access to services is linked and the ‘least poor’ households in the sample. to parental aspirations for children as well as their perceptions of the quality