BOOK REVIEW

Early childhood care and education in the Asia Pacificregion: Moving towards Goal 1

By Nirmala Rao and Jin Sun. UNESCO, Bangkok, and ComparativeEducation Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, 2010, 120 pp.CERC Monograph Series in Comparative and International Educationand Development, vol. 8. ISBN 978-988-17852-5-1 (pbk)

Michael McVey

Published online: 12 June 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

In 2000, UNESCO’s Framework of Action was adopted by 164 countries with the

goal of improving comprehensive early childhood care and education. More than a

decade since then, the progress nations have made can be instructive to outside

observers. Noble ambitions to improve the lot of the world’s most vulnerable

inhabitants hinge on widely variable factors in population, culture, governmental

structures, institutional readiness and other socio-economic constraints.

In Early Childhood Care and Education in the Asia Pacific Region, authors

Nirmala Rao and Jin Sun report on the progress nations have made as they move

towards Goal 1 of the Dakar Framework of Action (UNESCO 2000), namely to

expand and improve comprehensive early childhood care and education. This report

shows that methods for assessing such improvements might appear, at first, as

somewhat blunt instruments. Child well-being, for example, from a global

perspective is not defined by access to good sanitation and healthy food. Rather,

observers need the rough observations from counts of under-5 mortality and tallied

reports of stunted growth. As the world is being made aware of such issues,

attention to such general measures makes it possible to discern progress in child and

maternal health services. The authors note that marked improvement in under-5

mortality is indicative of changes in neonatal care, nutrition, breastfeeding and other

factors.

An excellent feature of this book is the summary, in tables organised by country,

of relevant policies and legislation. Discovering common legislative language is an

important aspect of the way we move towards our goals as a collection of nations.

The importance of sharing a common language of legislation and policy is essential

when compiling comparison reports. Another value of this book lies in the authors’

box summaries of relevant studies such as a report on the long-term impact of

M. McVey (&)

Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USA

e-mail: mmcvey@emich.edu

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Int Rev Educ (2012) 58:427–428

DOI 10.1007/s11159-012-9304-6

malnutrition on cognitive development. These are very helpful in providing a deeper

perspective of the issues behind progress towards this goal.

Comparing disparate nations is difficult. If one nation’s definition of early

childhood education, for example, varies significantly from another, we may lose

our ability to draw accurate conclusions about programmes that help us towards our

goals. Sometimes the definitions become wrapped in culture contexts, as was

primarily the case when defining ‘‘high quality’’ preschool experiences. However,

Sun and Rao do note areas of common agreement such as teacher-child ratios and

several effective practices.

The authors, in their conclusion, provide 14 solid recommendations for nations to

help them pay more attention to national policies that will assist them in making

overall improvements to child care. These include food supplements, free maternal

care, financial commitments, strengthening of partnerships and a careful monitoring

of progress indicators.

Sun and Rao find ways for conceptualising the delivery of basic education.

Preparing national reports on the years of required compulsory education is one

method, as are rates of primary school completion, access to early childhood

education, and increased participation of marginalised groups in schooling.

This well-researched book, complete with clearly summarised outside illustrative

reports, helps to paint a cautiously optimistic report of our advances towards one of

the most important Millennial Goals.

Reference

UNESCO. (2000). The Dakar framework for action: Education for All, meeting our collectivecommitments. Paris: UNESCO.

428 M. McVey

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