Research 

Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, January 

‘Evidence is growing that early childhood development (ECD) services have a strong, positive impact on children’s development. Despite increasing knowledge on the benefits of ECD, however, we still do not know very much about the early childhood workforce, one of the most important elements influencing the quality of ECD services. While we know that the workforce is important, key questions remain unanswered: What do early childhood professionals and paraprofessionals need to know and be able to do in order to perform effectively? How do requisite knowledge and skills vary across contexts? What types of training and support do staff receive? How is the early childhood workforce recruited, monitored, and evaluated? In an effort to address these questions, the Early Childhood Workforce Initiative, led by the International Step by Step Association (ISSA) and Results for Development (R4D), was created as a multi-stakeholder effort to support and empower those who work directly with young children. To inform and guide the Initiative, R4D is carrying out a series of global landscape analyses to establish the size and scope of the challenges faced by the early childhood workforce, while also highlighting promising practices countries have adopted in response to these challenges. Spanning a range of roles including professionals and paraprofessionals paid and unpaid workers, and frontline workers, trainers, supervisors, and managers from the education, health and nutrition, social protection and child protection sectors, the early childhood workforce is vast and diverse. Recognizing this diversity along with their many shared objectives, these analyses aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the current status of the workforce worldwide. The four themes which will be explored in this series include competences and standards, training and professional development, monitoring and mentoring, and recognition of the profession. This report, the first in this series, addresses the theme of training and professional development.’ [Introduction]