National moot on early childhood care and education to begin on March 27

Ministry of Federal Education is going to organise the first national conference on early childhood care and education in collaboration with Professional Training in collaboration with the Early Childhood Development Network of Pakistan (ECDNP).
This was announced by Rafique Tahir, Joint Educational Advisor Ministry of Education and Dr Shahid Siddiqui during a joint press conference here on Friday. The conference will be held on 27-28 March, 2017 at Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad. The conference is going to be held with an aim of 'Envisioning Holistic Early Childhood Care and Education for Pakistan: Creating an Equitable, Pluralistic and Sustainable Society', which is also the theme of the conference.
The national event features plenaries, engaging side sessions, poster presentations and social events to highlight the importance of holistic early childhood care and education (ECCE) in Pakistan. This is the first conference of its kind to bring all the stakeholders at one forum to review the current status of the ECCE in the country and chart a future direction for a holistic ECCE approach.
Tahir said that 15 research papers would be presented on the first day. Siddiqui announced that the conference would be held every year in the same month. The ECDNP and key development partners are organising this first national conference on early childhood care and education (ECCE) in Pakistan. In addition to the ministry and ECDNP, the event is being supported by other partners including AIOU, Rupani Foundation, JICA, Power99 Foundation, Plan International, UNICEF, UNESCO, Parwaan and Foundation Open Society Institute.
Key ministers of the federal cabinet, vice chancellors, senior officials and heads of partner organisations, along with around 300 academia and practitioners from all over the country are expected to participate in the conference. A high-level government dignitary will inaugurate the conference on March 27 at Allama Iqbal Open University. The conference management committee is taking care of all the arrangement of the conference.
Over the years Pakistan has seen increasing interventions in the area of early childhood care and education. Early childhood interventions in the country range from efforts to mainstream the pre-primary or katchi component into formal schooling to the development of the National ECE Curriculum in 2002 and various innovative ECCE programmes supported by donor agencies. Despite these achievements, Pakistan is still far away from providing access to some form of ECCE opportunities to all its children, which is the new commitment under Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the international community in 2015.
Studies show that only 38 percent children of age 3-5 in Pakistan had some form of access to ECE in 2012 (PSLM Survey 2011-12), which rose to 41 percent in 2014 (ASER 2014 Report). The official figures, however, claim over 66 percent children in this age bracket have access to ECE. Education, health and nutrition departments in Pakistan work in isolation ignoring the benefits of a holistic approach to ECCE. Much in the same way, early child interventions by the private and development sector are also scattered.
The result is the early childhood sector in Pakistan continues to remain fragmented and incoherent in its approach towards expanding access, training, curriculum, and funding. To envision an integrated approach to ECCE, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training in collaboration with the ECD Network of Pakistan (ECDNP) and development partners is organising a national conference on early childhood in Pakistan.
The National Conference is designed to bring all the stakeholders to one forum and instil the sense of networking and secondly to review the current status of ECCE in Pakistan and chart a future direction for its growth and thirdly to create a forum to share and learn best practices and experiences.
Around 300 delegates including research scholars, practitioners, teachers, students and dignitaries from the government and development sector will attend the conference over the 2 days. The conference will include an inaugural and closing session, plenary, breakout sessions and social events. The concurrent sessions will be organised to cover the theme and sub-themes of the conference. In addition to high quality papers on early childhood, the conference will feature poster presentations on ECCE projects or programs and best practices related to any of the conference theme and sub-themes.