Dr. Basma Faour in “Advancing the ECCD Agenda in the Arab Region”

Regional Consultative Workshop

22-25 March, 2010 - Jordan

Dr. Basma Faour, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning represented Dhofar University in the Regional Consultative Workshop held in Amman, Jordan from March 22-25, 2010. She presented the findings of a research study she conducted on six Arab countries concerning their early childhood services and programmes.

The Regional Consultative Workshop is concerned with Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD). The sponsors for the workshop were Save the Children, Open Society Foundation (OSF), Bernard van Leer Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, the Consultative Group (CG) for ECCD and UNESCO. The workshop was attended by 70 participants from 17 countries from the Arab world (Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen,) and Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Turkey, UK, and USA.

The purpose of the workshop was to share a joint analysis of current ECCD context in Arab countries and regionally: status and general trends of attention to young children, types and coverage of programmes and services, academic and in-service training, resources in Arabic, specific challenges such as emergencies, research, networking, etc. In doing so, identify areas and levels of engagement/interest of participating organizations: their own experience would provide another entry to the overview of the context. The workshop aimed at setting strategic priorities to advance the ECCD agenda for the next 3 to 5 years and defining the specific role that civil society actors can play within the strategy. The workshop also reviewed ventures already in motion and recommended new initiatives. The participants considered the potential and practicalities for setting up formal networks of early childhood organizations and/or individual professionals. The workshop will support the regional preparations for the Moscow Conference on EFA Goal 1.

On the first day of the workshop, Dr. Faour presented key findings of the current situation and identified through a SWOT analysis a set of recommendations that became an action-oriented plan to provide directions for strategic priorities. Dr. Faour highlighted the active role that National Councils on Childhood in the selected countries have been playing as well as the national commitment by the government towards gender parity and early childhood education. She also stressed the issues of access and affordability as well as coverage and quality. Dr. Faour discussed the opportunities available to advance early childhood services and programmes through parents’ empowerment, use of media and technology and role of NGOs. She added that universities could play a powerful role in terms of their academic programs, research and capacity building. Among the many challenges, Dr. Basma addressed the belief and value system of childhood, the need for a comprehensive knowledge base, funding, and more attention to school transition.

On the third day, Dr. Basma reported on the recommendations of the working group on research. The discussion focused on the importance of conducting research on a number of areas that had to do with the child, family, NGO, and school transition.