UNESCO Website

This week I spent some time exploring the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) website. UNESCO advocates for early childhood care and education programs related to health, nutrition, safety and learning which contribute to holistic development.

Three Things I Learned:

1. Under the Investing and Finances tab the author explained how difficult it is for countries to expand and improve early childhood programs. Early childhood education is often overshadowed by universal primary education. Countries should view early childhood education on the same level as basic education.  
2. Gender equality is a high priority for UNESCO. The website explained that even though gender inequality affects both genders, women are often more disadvantaged. Some of the obstacles in women’s way include minority status, poverty, early marriage and pregnancy and traditional attitudes about the status of women.
3. The Global Education Skills Forum was held in Dubai just last month. A new campaign called Business Back Education was launched at the Forum challenging businesses to commit 20% of its global Corporate Social Responsibility spending for educational purposes. The goal is for this to happen by the year 2020.

These items relate to my professional goals because investing in early childhood education is a high priority for me. I also think it’s important to help eliminate many of the inequalities facing the field of education, including inequities relating to gender. I found the UNESCO website to have a lot of valuable information which is contributing to my global view of early childhood education.