What are the four pillars of ECCE?
The four pillars of ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) are as follows:
- Access: This pillar focuses on ensuring that all children, regardless of their background, have equal opportunities to access high-quality early childhood education and care services. This includes efforts to remove barriers such as affordability, location, and availability of services.
- Equity: This pillar emphasizes the importance of addressing the diverse needs of children and promoting equal opportunities for learning and development. It aims to eliminate disparities in access to ECCE services and support the inclusion of children from marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds.
- Quality: This pillar highlights the importance of providing high-quality ECCE services that are developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, and evidence-based. Quality ECCE programs are designed to support children's physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development and involve trained and qualified staff.
- Governance: This pillar focuses on the need for strong governance and leadership in the ECCE sector to ensure effective policy development, implementation, and monitoring. This includes efforts to establish clear regulations and standards for ECCE services, support professional development for practitioners, and engage families and communities in the decision-making process.
