Early childhood education

We have been working with the UK’s Department for Education (DfE) and early years sector for many years, reaching thousands of educators and young children across England through our programmes.

We recently completed delivery of the DfE’s Early Years Professional Development Programme (EYPDP), and we are incredibly proud of the impact it has had. Between 2019 and 2025, the EYPDP supported over 14,500 early years educators working across all 153 local authorities in England.

We currently offer professional development opportunities through the Skills Bootcamps in Early Years programme, which is part of the government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee. This DfE initiative boosts participation in the early years sector, by offering free, accredited early years training courses.  Skills bootcamps take place in a range of early years settings, including pre-schools, nurseries, childminders, and school reception classes.

We also deliver the DfE’s National Professional Qualification (NPQ): Early Years Leadership to support current and aspiring nursery managers to develop expertise in early years education and leadership. This qualification empowers current and future leaders to create the conditions for change, embedding evidence-informed early education teaching and learning in their settings.

Alongside our delivery partners, we provide technical assistance on the INSPIRED programme in Kenya. This UK-funded initiative supports Kenya’s Ministry of Education with improving ECE provision and foundational learning for 200,000 children aged four and five, and focuses on improving literacy, numeracy, and executive functioning skills. 

Meanwhile, Engeza, the technical assistance hub that edt manages on behalf of the Gates Foundation, is collaborating with the Nigerian government and World Bank to develop a tool for evaluating teaching materials used in foundational learning. This tool measures the degree to which teaching materials adhere to evidence-based practices, and will support policymakers to improve and expand literacy and mathematics education provision at scale.

We are also delighted to be an implementing partner on the School Readiness Initiative (SRI) in Zimbabwe, funded by the Roger Federer Foundation. The SRI aims to provide vulnerable children in Zimbabwe with a good start in primary education through quality early childhood development (ECD) in 1,500 primary schools and early learning institutions. We are supporting the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) to deliver a capacity-building package following the ‘mother-school’ model, enabling primary schools to support community-based ECD centres. We are also providing mentoring support for pre-service and in-service teachers and community-focused ECD centre staff, as well as supporting efforts by MoPSE to build the capacity of school inspectors and master trainers. We are thrilled to be part of this transformative journey in strengthening foundational learning and early childhood education in Zimbabwe.

In Brunei Darussalam, our CfBT Education Services team has been supporting pre-school literacy learning for over 40 years. Working closely with the Ministry of Education, we provide Bruneian and CfBT teachers with the strategies and resources they need to prepare young children for later learning in primary and secondary school.  For example, during the compulsory pre-school (known as ‘pra’) year of education, we support teachers to use synthetic phonics instruction in reading literacy, in both Brunei Malay and English.

In Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, we have also partnered with governments to develop standards and inspection frameworks to help improve ECE provision for all pre-school age children.