Twelfth ICMEC
Twelfth ICMEC International Seminar Series 2018/2019
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Twelfth ICMEC International Seminar Series 2018/2019
Twelfth ICMEC
Reports
Seminar One
Wednesday 3 October 2018
In September 2017, the universal childcare offer for English 3 and 4-year-olds was extended to 30 hours for the children of working parents. September 2018, one year on from the national roll-out, saw the publication of its evaluation. On the afternoon of Wednesday, 3 October, ICMEC hosted the co-authors of the evaluation report commissioned by the Department for Education, Dr Gillian Paull of Frontier Economics and Ivana LaValle, an independent researcher and Visiting Scholar attached to ICMEC. With a diverse audience, the authors explored the findings and ramifications of this policy evaluation at the first seminar in the 12th annual series of ICMEC international seminars, which was hosted by Dr Jana Javornik of the School of Education and Communities at UEL. For their presentation, see: Gillian Paull and Ivana LaValle National Evaluation of 30 Hours ICMEC Presentation 3 October 2018.
Seminar Two
On 12 March 2019, ICMEC joined forces with UEL’s Centre for Social Justice and Change to host emeritus Professor Helen Penn, who co-founded ICMEC and is a Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education. Her presentation was entitled ‘World Class Fantasies? - The Early Childhood Policies and Practices of International Agencies.’ Her presentation can be found here.
Professor Penn examined the rationales and promises made for interventions in early childhood in majority world countries – including those of the Sustainable Development Goals. Millions of young children and their families globally experience inequality and poverty. The private sector is the main provider of childcare and education, which inevitably means very uneven access and standards in the poorest countries.
Professor Penn contrasted these realities against the extravagant claims of the World Bank, WHO and other international agencies about the potential of ECEC to transform societies. In her presentation, she drew on recent work by a variety of scholars across low- and middle-income countries brought together in a 2018 book she edited with Anne Trine Kjørholt: Early Childhood and Development Work – Theories, Policies and Practices, published by Palgrave Macmillan. View Professor Penn's presentation.
Dr Katie Wright, Reader in International Development at UEL and a member of the Centre for Social Justice and Change at UEL, provided a thoughtful and well-informed response to Professor Penn’s presentation and introduced a discussion around the issues raised. View her notes.