Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-diverse-world-of-early-childhood/5014612/
For a quarter of a century, Child Care Information Exchange has been tracking the status of early childhood education in North America. We have kept our fingers on the pulse of trends in non profit child care, for profit child care, church-housed child care, as well as on the largest and oldest child care centers. Two years ago we broadened our horizons by tracking trends in non profit child care worldwide ("Non Profit Child Care: A Powerful Worldwide Movement," March 2000). With this issue we are taking a closer look at the global demographics of early childhood. This search was greatly assisted by our friends at UNICEF and UNESCO, as well as by the power of the worldwide web.We set out to fill in a logical set of blanks about the status of children and found rich mines of data as well as complete voids. So, this first demographic survey will offer some intriguing insights and some frustrating gaps.
In reviewing the data at hand we came up with three specific observations:
1. The future of early childhood centers in Asia and Africa.
Today, three out of every four children under the age of five reside in Asia or ...