Reference Chapter 17 · Designing the national foundation before formal schooling
A national education system begins long before the first primary-school timetable. Young children develop language, attention, relationships, movement, reasoning and confidence through everyday interaction with caregivers, educators, peers and their environments. When early childhood services are fragmented, families may find childcare without meaningful learning support, preschool programmes without appropriate staffing, or a sharp transition into primary school that expects identical readiness from children with very different histories.
The gold standard is an early childhood education and care system that protects children’s development, supports families, maintains appropriate professional standards and creates a dependable bridge into later learning. It recognises that the early years involve care and education together. It also distinguishes what children need at different stages rather than compressing primary school into a younger age group.
This chapter provides an operating manual for national ministries and partner authorities: mandate design, integrated services, funding, workforce, developmentally appropriate pedagogy, inclusion, quality assurance, caregiver partnership and primary-school transition. Different countries allocate early childhood responsibilities among education, health, social protection and local authorities; this manual does not assume one administrative model is universal.
1. Define the service before defining school readiness
School readiness is often misunderstood as the ability to recognise letters, perform sums and sit quietly before Primary 1. These are incomplete indicators of development and may encourage inappropriate drilling.
A more useful definition considers the child’s developing language, social relationships, curiosity, self-regulation, physical well-being and familiarity with early literacy and numeracy experiences, alongside the school’s readiness to receive and teach children with varied starting points. A child should not bear the entire burden of adapting to an institution.
The UNESCO–UNICEF Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education: The Right to a Strong Foundation (2024) examines an integrated ecosystem of children, families, educators, institutions and public policy. It emphasises equitable access, quality and connections among services. For a ministry, that means designing the whole early-years service rather than treating enrolment as the finish line.
2. Establish an inter-agency Early Childhood Mandate Register
Young children’s development depends on education, health, nutrition, safe environments, responsive caregiving and appropriate social support. The WHO Nurturing Care Framework links these domains and helps authorities understand why one service cannot independently deliver every developmental outcome.
The ministry should create an Early Childhood Mandate Register showing:
- Age scope: the developmental stages and age ranges for which each authority is responsible.
- Service entitlement: the publicly promised forms of care, education or support.
- Provider regulation: which authority licenses or oversees facilities and personnel.
- Curriculum guidance: responsibility for age-appropriate learning expectations.
- Protection: safeguarding rules, incidents and statutory referral duties.
- Finance: subsidies, public provision, grants and the responsible budget.
- Workforce: professional preparation, qualifications and support.
- Transition: who coordinates the move to primary school.
- Appeals: how a family challenges a service or administrative decision.
- Evidence: what shows that provision is accessible, safe and educationally useful.
Publish a plain-language description for families. Inter-agency responsibility should not turn parents into case managers who must discover which office owns each difficulty.
3. Design a developmentally appropriate learning framework
Young children need rich language, play, exploration, physical movement, relationships, expressive activities and opportunities to investigate their surroundings. A national framework should provide meaningful educational direction without prescribing a uniform minute-by-minute curriculum for every child.
The framework can organise developmental learning around communication and emergent literacy; early number, pattern and spatial reasoning; physical and sensory development; relationships and social participation; curiosity, inquiry and the natural world; creativity; and growing independence appropriate to age.
Each area should identify examples of suitable activities, educator observation, likely variation in development and conditions requiring additional support. It should not turn a broad developmental guide into an examination syllabus.
For example, a child exploring how blocks balance is learning about shape, quantity, prediction and cause and effect. The educator’s role may be to introduce useful vocabulary, invite a comparison and help the child articulate an observation. The exercise need not become a written test to count as meaningful mathematics or science learning.
4. Protect learning through responsive interaction
Resources matter, but meaningful learning also depends on what happens between adults and children. Educators need time and skill to listen, observe, respond, introduce language, guide interaction and scaffold new understanding.
The national quality standard should describe responsive practice in observable terms: respectful communication, predictable routines, purposeful play, opportunities for child initiative, sensitive assistance, appropriate expectations and interactions that promote belonging.
Professional review should examine real encounters rather than merely counting toys or lesson plans. A visually attractive centre can still provide poor educational interaction. Conversely, a modest facility can support strong learning when staff are competent, resources are safe and necessary services function.
The standard must also acknowledge the importance of caregiving. A hungry, frightened or exhausted child cannot be expected to learn as effectively as one whose basic needs are met. Care and education are not competing product categories.
5. Build an early childhood workforce that can stay and grow
The workforce needs suitable preparation in child development, pedagogy, language, inclusion, relationships, observation, safeguarding and professional ethics. Different roles may require different qualifications and supervision according to national law.
A Workforce Capacity Map should show qualified staff availability by area, age group, language capability, special educational needs expertise, leadership responsibility and likely departures. It should also include substitutes and the operational effect of absence.
Preparation must connect knowledge to supervised practice. New educators need induction, guidance, feedback and opportunities to observe skilled colleagues. Leaders need training in pedagogy and safe service management, not only administration.
Workload and pay conditions affect retention and continuity. A ministry should not rely on staff goodwill to compensate indefinitely for high turnover or insufficient planning time. Recruitment targets alone cannot ensure quality interactions with children.
See Teacher Workforce Planning, Deployment and Retention for the wider national workforce model.
6. Make early childhood funding equitable and predictable
Early childhood services can impose substantial household costs, especially when families need extended hours, transport or specialist support. A national allocation model should distinguish access, affordability, quality and financial sustainability.
Funding analysis should consider the full cost of safe facilities, trained staff, materials, supervision, accessibility, maintenance and appropriate working conditions. Subsidies that expand places without meeting quality requirements can create a numerical improvement with little developmental benefit.
A ministry should map who receives public support and who remains excluded by geography, cost, application complexity or provider availability. It should test whether financing rules unintentionally concentrate better services in already advantaged communities.
Affordable access is not established by publishing a low nominal fee if families must pay additional required charges they cannot manage.
7. Protect children through licensing and supervision
Early childhood services involve young learners who may be unable to explain unsafe or inappropriate treatment. A credible regulatory system must therefore set and verify standards for staff suitability, professional boundaries, supervision, safe environments, nutrition or food handling where applicable, hygiene, emergency arrangements and safeguarding reporting.
A licence is a permission to operate under specified conditions, not a permanent guarantee of quality. Authorities need proportionate monitoring, lawful enforcement and a fair process for addressing serious deficiencies.
A Provider Assurance Record should contain the provider’s authorised services, capacity, staff qualifications, significant risks, inspections, unresolved defects, corrective actions and next review. Public information should be useful to parents without disclosing sensitive child or security details.
Regulators must maintain alternative reporting channels when a concern involves the provider’s leadership. No family’s access to safe care should depend on silence about a problem.
8. Connect early intervention with inclusion
Early childhood educators may notice differences in communication, participation, sensory responses, movement or early learning. Observation can support helpful adjustments, but it must not become a mechanism for prematurely assigning permanent labels or making clinical diagnoses without qualified assessment.
Use a Developmental Support Route: describe what has been observed, consult caregivers, review the environment and instruction, provide appropriate support, involve qualified specialists when needed and re-check participation.
The purpose is to remove barriers and build capability. Some children require sustained accommodations; those arrangements should not be withdrawn merely because a numerical target has been reached.
Make support accessible across languages and family circumstances. Avoid requiring families to navigate lengthy referrals unaided when an educational service can provide better coordination within its lawful remit.
9. Treat language development as foundational infrastructure
Young children build understanding through language, interaction and context. The ministry should equip educators to recognise the distinction between limited familiarity with the language of instruction and a more general learning difficulty.
Support home languages appropriately while helping children acquire the languages needed for later schooling. Materials and family communication should reflect the linguistic realities of the community. Where policy prescribes a particular language of instruction, the transition must be designed so children are not silently excluded from understanding.
Books, stories, conversation, songs and play can build rich vocabulary and narrative ability. The measure should not be limited to early alphabet drills or memorised word lists.
The companion UNESCO Languages Matter: Global Guidance on Multilingual Education (2025) provides principles for equitable language planning. The broader national operating standard follows in Chapter 18 of this manual.
10. Design an honest parent and caregiver partnership
Family support matters, but the ministry should not transfer the whole responsibility for early development onto parents. Caregivers have different working hours, health conditions, languages, literacy experiences and financial resources.
A good early childhood service offers clear information about children’s everyday learning, accessible communication and feasible suggestions that do not require expensive purchases. Families can share knowledge about a child’s routines, interests, home language and emerging needs.
An Early Years Family Conversation should discuss strengths, experiences, concerns, support already provided, a realistic next step and a date to review. It must protect family privacy and avoid comparing children as if development were a uniform race.
For national family communication design, see Family, School and Community Partnerships.
11. Build the transition to Primary 1 as a shared service
The transition from preschool to primary education is an institutional handoff, not a one-day event. Primary teachers need to know what their initial learning activities assume. Early childhood providers need an appropriate understanding of primary expectations. Families and learners need accessible orientation.
A Primary Entry Continuity Protocol should clarify:
- The foundational learning experiences expected before school, without imposing a uniform test.
- The primary school’s introductory instructional approach.
- Necessary support or accommodations and secure transfer arrangements.
- Orientation activities for learners and caregivers.
- The initial evidence primary teachers will gather.
- Who can help when adjustment difficulties arise.
- How existing strengths and interests remain visible.
- The date for reviewing support after entry.
Primary schools should be ready to teach pupils who arrive with uneven knowledge. A preschool certificate or readiness checklist cannot replace the school’s own professional responsibility.
12. Design public data without profiling children prematurely
Early childhood authorities need information about service access, staffing, developmental opportunities and quality assurance. Individual developmental data, however, can be easily misunderstood or misused.
An early years information system should separate provider administration from personal child support records. Use aggregated reporting for public monitoring when it suffices. Limit individual access by role and purpose, with corrections and retention rules.
A child who shows delayed speech in one setting should not carry an unexplained, permanent label into every later educational system. Relevant support information should travel lawfully with context, source, date and review requirements.
National data must also distinguish enrolment from regular attendance and from meaningful access to quality interaction. The least easy outcome to count may still be the one that matters most.
13. Evaluate programmes without turning play into test preparation
A ministry can evaluate early childhood provision through educator observation, representative classroom evidence, family feedback, quality reviews, participation, accessibility and carefully designed developmental measures.
Overly narrow school readiness tests can produce unintended pressure to accelerate formal worksheets at the expense of broader experience. The evaluation framework should examine curriculum balance, child well-being, staff capacity and teaching quality.
Where research-based measures are used, document their population, cultural and language relevance and appropriate interpretation. A screening tool for identifying possible support needs is not automatically valid for ranking providers or determining a child’s future.
The purpose is to improve early childhood services and detect excluded learners, not to declare educational success based on how early children can reproduce school examination routines.
14. Case study: a highly rated preschool produces fragile foundations
Imagine a preschool whose students can recite numbers to one hundred and copy many words. Parents are pleased. Primary teachers later discover that a significant group of children cannot compare small quantities, use basic relational language or explain simple stories.
A superficial response adds longer daily worksheets. A better review examines the learning experiences behind the observed performance. Perhaps children were rehearsing sequences without reasoning or conversation. Educators receive support in observation, number sense, shared reading and responsive questioning. Families receive plain-language explanations.
The ministry evaluates the revised programme using varied tasks and primary-entry continuity evidence. Successful repair is demonstrated when children can engage independently with meaningful learning, not merely reproduce a longer memorised sequence.
15. Failure modes and how to repair them
The enrolment illusion
Failure: places increase while quality and attendance remain unknown. Repair: link access with teacher capacity, safe environments and meaningful engagement.
The primary-school compression
Failure: early childhood becomes examination preparation for younger children. Repair: return to age-appropriate development and foundational understanding.
The split-ministry gap
Failure: health, care and education agencies each assume the other owns a support problem. Repair: establish an explicit mandate register and referral pathway.
The qualified-workforce shortage
Failure: staffing minimums exist on paper but everyday practice lacks competent support. Repair: improve preparation, deployment, mentoring and retention.
The premature label
Failure: a child’s temporary difficulty becomes a lasting judgment. Repair: record context and provide reviewable support rather than fixed predictions.
The missing transition
Failure: early support disappears when the child begins Primary 1. Repair: verify receiving-school readiness and a lawful continuity handoff.
16. National operating scorecard
The ministry should examine access, affordability, quality, workforce, safety, inclusion, caregiver partnership and continuity together. Useful measures include places available by location, actual participation, qualified staff coverage, staff stability, access to inclusive support, safety assurance, quality of child–educator interaction, reported family barriers and the effectiveness of primary transition arrangements.
Every measure needs a denominator, owner, date and interpretation note. A high average can conceal missing provision in rural or low-income communities. A short screening score is not a complete measure of early childhood development.
Monitor the burden of reporting on educators. Collect only data that support necessary decisions.
17. The first 180 days of improvement
Days 1–30: map mandates, access barriers and available early childhood services; identify serious safeguarding or accessibility gaps.
Days 31–60: inspect representative settings for curriculum, interaction quality, staff preparation, financing and family communication.
Days 61–90: publish an integrated provider and transition standard with clear owners; establish a route for correcting urgent problems.
Days 91–120: pilot professional support, accessible family guidance and an age-appropriate transition programme in diverse settings.
Days 121–180: evaluate actual child participation, staff practice, family access and receiving-school continuity; publish limitations and the next improvement cycle.
18. Gold-standard acceptance tests
- Does a child receive both appropriate care and educational opportunity?
- Are duties across ministries and providers explicit?
- Is play-based and responsive learning protected from excessive formal drilling?
- Are staff qualified, supported and able to remain in the profession?
- Are services affordable and reachable by families who need them?
- Can developmental concerns lead to appropriate, reviewable support?
- Are safeguarding, supervision and licensing independently checkable?
- Does language provision reflect the child’s learning needs?
- Does Primary 1 receive children through a planned and supportive handoff?
- Can the ministry demonstrate improved experiences and foundations beyond increased enrolment?
19. Reference sources and place in the manual
The principal references are the UNESCO–UNICEF Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education (2024), WHO Nurturing Care Framework and UNICEF guidance on strengthening early childhood services. Each jurisdiction must apply its own legal and regulatory requirements.
This chapter is part of The Gold Standard of a Ministry of Education Reference Manual. The supporting chapters on Inclusive Education, Student Pathways and Transitions and Family–School Partnerships connect early childhood to the wider education system.
Final principle
The gold standard of early childhood education is not starting formal school earlier. It is giving children safe relationships, strong language and thinking opportunities, competent care, equitable support and a well-designed transition that lets every child continue learning from the starting point they actually have.