Excerpts from the presentation:
Why has the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre decided to devote the next Report Card to early childhood education and care? Based on what we today know about the critical stages and factors in a child's emotional, physical and cognitive development, - and the numerous authoritative reviews of services that have identified what works well in early childhood programmes &em; we see an enormous potential for increasing child wellbeing and advancing child rights, particularly of the most vulnerable, and for strengthening broad knowledge-based economic growth. Yet, when we check this &em; existing - knowledge against current policies and the human and financial resources devoted in this area, we see a mismatch (in part because figures on relevant comparable spending is hard to get at). OECD countries on average spend some 0.7 percent of GDP on ECEC while our assessment suggests that at least 1 percent &em; or for many countries a doubling of efforts, is needed &em; to upgrade and expand support and services for young children.