Category: Early Childhood

Advancing early childhood development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ten key insights from researchers

by Stephen Acquah | Mar 31, 2025 | Early Childhood

Early Childhood Development (ECD) plays a significant role in shaping the future of individuals and societies, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where challenges like limited resources, systemic inequalities and learning poverty demand innovative and contextualised solutions. Read More

Early Childhood Development outputs by researchers in sub-Saharan Africa: Focus, funding and collaboration

by Daniel Hawkins Iddrisu and Eunice Mueni Williams | Sep 30, 2024 | Early Childhood

Early childhood development (ECD) is important for ensuring that children aged 0-3 can achieve their full potential, and this is widely recognised in advocacy, policies, and research. Read More

Prioritising early learning research in sub-Saharan Africa for equitable learning outcomes

by Samuel Asare, Priscilla Bretuo, Ronald Omuthe and Basirat Razaq-Shuaib | Jul 24, 2024 | Early Childhood, Learning

This blog builds on a previous analysis highlighting limited research addressing early years in sub-Saharan Africa, and continues to draw attention to the need to prioritise early learning for equitable learning outcomes. Read More

Understanding research priorities and professional development needs of early years researchers in Africa

by Samuel Asare and Pauline Essah | Dec 14, 2023 | Early Childhood

Even though research from Africa has increased over the last decade, it is still low compared to other regions. This can be attributed to several factors, including limited investment in research priorities and professional development of researchers in the region. Read More

Key takeaways and reflections from Early Childhood Education In Emergencies panel at 2023 UKFIET conference

by Priyanka Upreti | Nov 15, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood, Education in Emergencies

Conflicts, crises, and climate change have resulted in the displacement of millions of children across the globe. Early childhood education and development (ECED) offers safety, security, and stability for children in crises. Despite its importance, ECED programming in emergencies is not viewed as a central pillar of humanitarian response. Read More

Mapping Early Childhood Development Research for Local Knowledge and Global Development: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African-based Researchers

by Daniel Hawkins Iddrisu | Oct 24, 2023 | Early Childhood

The duality of Global North and South in the academic space is now a contrast of valued knowledge and undervalued knowledge. As a result of colonialism and systemic bias, knowledge produced from the Global South is often treated with disregard, a core tracer of "epistemic injustice". Read More

Sharing early years education learning: Bringing Ghana’s story to the international UKFIET conference

by Robert Quansah | Oct 19, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

This blog was written by Robert Quansah, Senior ECE Technical Manager at Sabre Education. Robert is currently studying for a Masters in Early Years Education at University...

Rethinking early childhood education in humanitarian contexts

by Sarah Ndlovu | Oct 17, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

In 2018, Children on the Edge started to support 30 communities to provide ECE in learning centres. When these were closed for 83 weeks due to Covid, one of the world's longest lockdowns, they pivoted to provide home learning for small groups of children, close to their homes. Read More

Inclusive early childhood education in Malawi: project development through community participation

by Veronica Stapleton, Betty Moses and Ben Chikaipa | Oct 12, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

Negative social attitudes, inaccessible learning environments, and a lack of investment means that access to ECDE is limited for children with disabilities. Read More

Ahlan Simsim partnership with Ministries of Education: Supporting and scaling for school readiness and beyond

by Chantale Kallas and Samina Singh | Oct 10, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

Education is the foundation for success later in life and a critical tool for reducing global equity gaps. Early education and nurturing care in a child’s earliest years (0-8) are critical, when their brains are undergoing some of the most rapid growth they’ll experience during their lives. Read More

Films for teachers: Supporting language and literacy (pre-)school pedagogy in India

by Ernesto Roque Gutierrez, Shashi Kant Singh, Hannah Simmons, Eliza Elizabeth George, Enxhi Sharxhi, Gideon Arulmani, Saktibrata Sen and Sonali Nag | Oct 4, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

Teachers understand the importance of drawing upon children’s experiences and prior knowledge to make lessons meaningful and valuable to them. This, too, applies to their language. Read More

The place of locally published and unpublished early childhood development research in sub-Saharan Africa

by Eunice Mueni Williams | Oct 3, 2023 | 2023 UKIFET Conference, Early Childhood

There is growing focus on localisation and decolonisation of research evidence from the Global South. This is driven by the acknowledgement that locally-contextualised and practice-derived research is better placed to inform local investments, policy and practice. Read More