Transforming Early Childhood Development

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When designing and implementing policy, how can we ensure policies address the needs of our most vulnerable families and communities?
Policy design work and implementation must be strongly informed by the needs of all potential service users, especially those who are hardest to reach but who could benefit most from the services on offer. To this end, it is especially helpful for policy designers and service managers to inform their practices with Design Thinking techniques. These encourage close observation of how users interact with services, the challenges people face in accessing services, and how services can be highly responsive to the needs of individual children, families, and local communities.

How do we ensure that early childhood education caters to a diversity of needs?
First, some form of central coordination of funding allocations is essential, so that those families and communities with the greatest needs receive the greatest resources. Second, service provision decisions should be devolved as much as possible to the local level, so that those with the greatest knowledge of local needs can respond to them in timely and effective ways. Third, monitoring of local practices and the dissemination of knowledge is critical for ensuring that all service providers are aware of what works and what is likely to work best in their centres.

What design elements can promote continual improvement in the services delivered?
First, early childhood education teaching staff must be well trained professionals. Training should occur both pre-service and through provision of continuous in-service professional development opportunities. Second, there needs to be a well-funded research function for the sector as a whole. All industries thrive when they are supported by a strong culture of research and development. That is true of education. Third, efforts must be made to ensure that practical insights from research are effectively conveyed to teaching staff so that they can use them to inform what they do in their centres.

How can we learn from stories of success and scale them up to develop a system that works for everyone?
It can be incredibly useful to have practitioners share their stories with others. This is where in-service professional development can be especially valuable. Efforts should be made to ensure regular events occur where early childhood educators can share their stories and learn from others about what works. Innovation competitions can be helpful as a way of encouraging people to reflect on their practices and share what they do with others. University-based researchers also face many opportunities to gather stories and systematically draw insights from them for dissemination.

Examples of collaborations you have been involved with outside of academia that addressed issues in early childhood education and/or development.
In 2011, I chaired a government-funded taskforce in New Zealand which produced, An agenda for amazing children: Final report of the ECE Taskforce. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Education.

Additional Resources

Mintrom, Michael, and Joannah Luetjens. (2016) "Design thinking in policymaking processes: Opportunities and challenges." Australian Journal of Public Administration 75, no. 3: 391-402.

Farquhar, Sandy, and A. N. Gibbons. (2019) "Early childhood education policy pathways: A learning story." Ch.19 in Successful Public Policy: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand. Canberra: ANU Press, pp.453-476.