Workforce development
Core Function 3 focuses on supporting the recruitment, development, and retention of a sufficient number of pre-primary teachers and other key personnel into the subsector, ensuring that they have the essential competencies, training, and support required to promote children’s positive development and early learning.
Core Function 3
A well-prepared workforce is essential to delivering high-quality pre-primary services. Developing a strong workforce includes effective teacher recruitment with equitable gender representation; adequate pre-service teacher training for all relevant staff; qualifications and career development opportunities; equitable access to quality; ongoing professional support for all personnel; and monitoring how these components impact the teaching-learning process in order to be responsive to the needs of all learners and to the local context. Additionally, the pre-primary workforce should be equipped to support transitions to primary school by preparing children and their families alike for this transition. Another consideration is how to shift the workforce’s perspectives/behavior regarding play-based learning. In many cases, the tendency of educators is to see play as being at odds with academic learning, when a wealth of research in the area has demonstrated that children learn most effectively through play.
It is important to ensure that an increase in access to ECE is not accompanied by a decrease in ECE quality due to the lack of qualified teachers. Expanding access to ECE needs to be accompanied by policies to maintain and improve the quality of the ECE workforce. When it comes to implementing policies around workforce development, it is important for policymakers to diagnose the ECE situation in context (source). This diagnosis will help provide a starting point and a sequence for interventions that are most likely to be effective. Challenges and other aspects to consider will differ on what stage countries are in in terms of workforce development. For example, challenges for a country that is in the relatively early stages of developing pre-service training may include a lack of clear pathways from pre-service programs to formal certification, diplomas, or degrees and programmes that are not well-synchronized with the country’s teacher competencies. Challenges for a country that is in a more advanced stage of developing pre-service training, however, may instead include a focus on low participation rates in pre-service programmes and inconsistent compliance with national directives at the subnational level. Other important considerations include a sustainable teacher payment scheme, as not having one often means less access or teachers who are paid poorly, if at all, leading to low motivation and teachers exiting the system, as well the lack of formal recognition and poor working conditions that many in the ECE workforce may experience.
In terms of effective longer-term planning for improving the quality of the ECE workforce, coordination not only with departments in the ministries of education but also ministries of health and social services should be examined. Integration with the primary education curriculum, between pre-service and in-service support, and amongst different teacher service modalities are all other areas that should be considered in implementation, as well as examining teacher data, including educator skills, and student learning outcomes.
Cross-cutting considerations
Education personnel at all levels need sufficient support and training to address the specific learning and SEL needs of children impacted by crisis and to manage diversity in the cultural, ethnic, learning, or linguistic backgrounds of students. In emergency contexts, classes are often grouped together, including children of different ages and grades. Therefore, teachers should be provided information on how to effectively conduct training activities in such settings and should receive training on how to refer children to other services, if needed.
In many disasters and conflicts, availabilty of trained staff is limited. Volunteers from the community may be recruited and trained to work with young children and families. These volunteers should be screened, recruited, and trained as defined by the local codes of conduct. Teachers should also be provided with access to basic social services that can address their psychosocial and emotional needs.
It is important to take measures to promote men's recruitment into ECE and to increase the proportion of male caregivers/educators in community-based or formal ECE preschools/programmes to expand gender diversity in the ECE workforce, while also recognizing that ECE offers employment opportunities and economic autonomy for women. It is important to make sure that children have exposure to and interactions with a mixed-gender ECE workforce to model the different roles men can play in children’s lives. There is the need to professionalize ECE, improve wages and conditions, and address the low value that society places on ECE and the workforce - these caregivers/teachers are not merely babysitters, but play an important and critical role in young children's early learning and development. Further, it is important to ensure that there are no barriers for women’s professional growth and enhancement, including progressing to management and leadership positions.
For teachers, appropriate training is important as well as teaching them how to implement environmental accommodations for children with possible disabilities. This can help build equity and inclusion into pre-primary programming. Further, more teachers with disabilities are needed, to act as role models for children. Pre-service and in-service professional development should ensure knowledge development to support the implementation of inclusive practices, such as attitudes and perceptions regarding inclusion, the importance of differences, the promotion of diversity and the development of collaborative ways of working. Such training should not be limited to teachers but should also include supervisory personnel.
As classrooms may have children with unidentified disabilities, one way to help teachers prepare for the variety of needs that may exist is to receive training on Universal Design for Learning. Integrating principles of UDL can be effective for a broad range of learners as it allows learner choice, self-monitoring, and accessible learning materials and can help teachers ensure that pre-primary content reaches a broader range of learners.
For more information on Universal Design for Learning in early childhood education, see:
- The universal design of early education: Moving forward for all children
- Universal Design for Learning from the Head Start Early Childhood Learning & Knowledge Center
- Using a Universal Design for Learning framework to enhance engagement in the early childhood classroom
Digital learning and educational technology
When it comes to workforce development, consideration needs to be both to how digital learning and education technology can be used to teach teachers as well as how teachers can be trained to use these newer modalities and approaches effectively in the classroom with their students as well as to support parents at home.
Through a combination of training, written guidelines and tools, and ongoing support, digital learning and edtech can be used to help strengthen pedagogical capacities of the ECE workforce. EdTech Hub’s rapid literature review (pp. 54-56) provides a summary of different ways ECE practitioners and teachers were supported remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, using different virtual and remote training modalities. Interactive audio instruction (IAI) is a low-tech method that also has huge potential in training teachers. A distance learning technology that can deliver low-cost, culturally appropriate education via radio or mobile audio technology, it can be effective for building teacher skills and supporting the rollout of new curricula while also putting on high quality programming for children listening to the programs. For example, in Zanzibar, IAI was used as part of the Radio Instruction to Strengthen Education (RISE) and Zanzibar Teacher Upgrading through Radio (ZTUR) Projects to develop a quality distance and open learning program through which in-service early childhood teachers were able to upgrade their skills and work towards preschool accreditation.
Not only can digital learning and edtech be used to teach the ECE workforce, but the ECE workforce also needs to be supported in their own digital skills development, with dedicated training on best practices around engaging with technology. Some countries (e.g. Finland, Japan) have included digital skills into the early childhood curriculum, but these countries are the exception. A recent OECD survey found that while countries were planning to develop pre-service and in-service training programs on remote/hybrid teaching and related digital skills, fewer countries were planning to develop such programming for pre-primary teachers as compared to primary teachers. Including pre-service or in-service coursework on how to effectively use educational technology in the classroom and/or as part of remote teaching/learning in a developmentally-appropriate manner can be included in early childhood teacher preparation programmes to support teachers in this area. For instance, a study looking at preschool teachers’ use of online learning platforms in Hong Kong found that there was the need for more interactive online teaching preparation to address young children’s learning needs. In-service trainings can also be developed to keep pace with advances in technology but should not come at the expense of other areas of professional development.
Example: An example of an online learning platform used in South Africa is P.L.A.Y Online, an accredited online in-service training programme focusing on learning through play and how to use play as a powerful teaching tool. After completing this free course, which complements existing formal training, participants are eligible for continuous professional development credits. Over 280,000 ECD practitioners and educators have completed this course. A short story about teachers’ experience enrolling in this training program can be found here.