Early Childhood Education and Care
EPA’s involvement in the EC high-level conference on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
On March 3rd the directorate general on education and culture (DG EAC) presented the results of the ET2020 working group on improving quality early childhood education. The European Parents’ Association had been invited to participate in one of the WG’s meetings in 2020 and had strongly opposed the fact that in all the documents the expression “from birth” had been used for ECEC settings as if parents had no role to play in their child’s education. Recognizing the difficult situation in some countries regarding insufficient provision for parental leave, EPA successfully pleaded for a change in wording and at the event itself stressed again the importance of the inclusion of parents in the support schemes like home-visiting programs, home-school-liaison officers and enhancing digital technology for the purpose. The fundamental role of families was also underlined by the Portuguese Secretary of State for Education, João Costa and the President of Eurochild and former president of Malta, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca. All these speakers on the first panel, including Arja Krauchenberg, President of the Lifelong Learning Platform speaking also on behalf of EPA, welcomed the outputs of the WG, namely the toolkit to improve the quality and inclusiveness of ECEC settings and the report on how to train, motivate and retain highly professional staff.