Asia Pacific Region:What and how to document children's learning?

As Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) are newly set, global communityhas recognized education as the most important area for achieving othergoals. Especially goal target 4.2 and 4.7 inform us the importance ofaccessibility... [ view full abstract ]

As Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) are newly set, global community
has recognized education as the most important area for achieving other
goals. Especially goal target 4.2 and 4.7 inform us the importance of
accessibility and quality learning. Goal target 4.2 particularly focusing on
early childhood education states “by 2030, ensure that all girls and boys
have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary
education so that they are ready for primary education”. Goal target 4.7
states that “by 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and
skills needed to promote sustainable development.
Ban Ki Moon, General Secretary of United Nations talks about education
for all as the first initiative for sustainability. At the same time he says
that focus should change from education to learning, since many children
in the world are in education, but do not learn properly. In those curricula
that allow children’s voices and places, the values of children’s influence
and participation in their own every-day life and learning are central. In
order to provide meaningful learning for young children, teachers and
parents should be able to listen to their voices.
A recent initiative regarding monitoring has been developed by UNESCO,
UNICEF, the World Bank, WHO, and OECD to measure and assess early
learning and child development. This is intended to provide open-source,
freely-accessible measures to enable countries to monitor the progress
towards national and global goals of young children’s competencies.
However, it is not free from criticism, because those approaches do not
reflect complexity and context in learning. Teachers and parents wish to
document the variations in children’s early learning and development to
understand and support their learning. It should be noted that this process
should be contextually appropriate. OMEP AP regional symposium will focus on documenting children’s learning this year.