Our international work on early childhood education

ECE provision is rapidly expanding in low- and middle-income countries. However, while increasing access is important, this alone does not lead to better outcomes for children; the quality of the provision must improve too. A workforce of experienced, knowledgeable and skilled professionals is one of the key determinants of high-quality ECE provision, therefore the ECE sector needs well-informed and confident educators to deliver high-quality education to children in the early stages of their development. 

We therefore work in partnership with governments and specialist partners around the world to support the continuous improvement of ECE policy and practice. In Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, for example, we have partnered with governments to develop standards and inspection frameworks to help improve ECE provision for all pre-school age children.  

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. 

Alongside our delivery partners, we also 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.