Shanta* is only four years old, but already she loves school. Every morning, her mother walks her to the small pre-primary facility in Mohonpur village, about 140 km away from Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, and leaves her in the care of a young female teacher, who oversees the day’s activities: storytelling, drama, reciting poetry.
In the United States, African American children continue to face more barriers to success than any other race, new research suggests.
Over 300 business, civil society and academic groups here are urging U.S. lawmakers to support early childhood education, months after President Barack Obama hinted that his administration would be pushing for a change in U.S. policy to support universal preschool.
Following on a surprise announcement supporting a universal preschool guarantee during his annual State of the Union address earlier this week, President Barack Obama spent much of Thursday pushing a suite of new policy initiatives aimed at vastly increasing access to high-quality education and development programmes for a child’s first few years of life.