High-quality, stable child care and early education (CCEE) can have lasting, positive impacts on children. However, the challenges of recruiting, strengthening, and retaining the CCEE workforce are well documented. CCEE educators typically have low levels of formal education and compensation; limited opportunities for education, training, and…

Following calls to 'bewilder' (Snaza 2013) the pioneers of early education, this article positions Montessori pedagogy as a 'desire path' that acts as resistance to normative policy-driven pathways in early childhood education and care. Desire paths are alternative tracks made aside from officially established walking routes. In this paper I think…

As part of its effort to make universal prekindergarten (UPK) available to four-year-olds, California has recently expanded transitional kindergarten (TK) in its public schools. TK will be a full pre-K grade level in all districts by the 2025-26 school year. Other states that seek to broaden access to early care and education (ECE) can learn…

In 2021, California committed to providing universal prekindergarten (UPK) for all 4-year-olds and income-eligible 3-year-olds by 2025-26. UPK includes several early learning programs, including transitional kindergarten (TK), the California State Preschool Program (CSPP), Head Start, and expanded learning opportunities to provide full-day early…

The Council on Postsecondary Education (Council) is charged with guiding the reform efforts envisioned by state policy leaders in the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 and is Kentucky's statewide postsecondary and adult education coordinating agency. To gain better insight into economic conditions and workforce trends,…

This Education Sector Analysis is conducted in the context of potential stability resulting in the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan; and the unforeseen impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis evaluates both the accomplishments and the challenges within the education sector in South Sudan,…

The number of children in poverty looks set to rise and the gap in outcomes between the most disadvantaged children and their peers is likely to widen. Many families will face challenges of poverty, ill health, bereavement and unemployment, with knock-on effects for children's health and wellbeing. There are fears that children will miss out on…

This paper critically examines current concerns regarding professional issues in labour force development for teachers with children up to two years of age (UtoT). The concerns in New Zealand (NZ) relate to whether initial teacher-education (ITE) qualifications prepare teachers to work with children UtoT, involving synergy between ITE and the…

Enactment of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) in 2015 introduced opportunities to use federal funds to strengthen the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce as a means of better meeting the needs of the growing and increasingly diverse young child population. Children under the age of 5 who have at least one parent or…

Resulting from a fragmented landscape of policies for and uneven investments in the early childhood education (ECE) field in the United States, the qualifications of the ECE teaching workforce are typically quite low. This article first reviews the history and status of the ECE teaching workforce in the United States, focusing on the evolution of…

Research shows that well trained and educated early child care and education (ECCE) workers are key to helping children in care reach their full developmental potential. Federal and state governments spend billions of dollars each year to improve ECCE programs, including the quality of its caregivers and teachers. Because of the importance of this…

Policy documents for schools and education are being increasingly standardised all over the world and some research claims that a global curriculum is developing in which aspects such as entrepreneurship, lifelong learning and sustainable development are common denominators. This is regarded as a sign that economic rationality is gaining more and…

This article puts forward the idea that in order to sufficiently meet the needs of very young children and thereby develop quality provision, early years practitioners must develop a professional approach that combines personal awareness with theoretical knowledge. It argues that the development of such abilities is enabled in process-oriented…

As early childhood services move up the policy agenda, so too does the early childhood workforce. Its members are recognised as the main resource for such services, and there is an increasing recognition that the work is complex and requires enhanced education. But despite this recognition, the situation in many countries--where the early…

Most early care and education teachers are not required to have attained a bachelor's degree (BA) prior to working with young children. Because of the research base demonstrating that teachers with a BA specifically related to early childhood play an integral role in the provision of high-quality early care and education, there have been…