Filed under Primary Education …

Supporting multiple languages in early childhood

In Canada, as in several parts of the world, many children grow up in multiple linguistic contexts. They often live, learn, and interact in different languages at home, at school, and in other contexts. A number of research studies have demonstrated that it is beneficial for children to grow up bilingual from their earliest years (see … Continue reading →

Educational and other effects of giving children tablets for learning: Critical questions on the One Laptop Per Child approach

Recent news articles have been discussing the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project being implemented in various parts of the Majority World. Here’s an article at Mashable, and another at Dvice. Basically, the OLPC programme recently gave tablets to Grade-1-aged children in two remote Ethiopian villages. OLPC has given tablets to children before. What was different … Continue reading →

The importance of the first 2,000 days of life for health, learning, and society

Children’s earliest experiences – in “the first 2,000 days of life” – play a critical role in establishing their developmental trajectories in health, learning, and society. This was the key message of the international symposium, ‘Investing in Mothers and Children’ (a Connaught Global Challenge International Symposium), held September 27-29, 2012, to mark the official launch of the … Continue reading →

The status of education in Pakistan

Recently the South Asian Forum for Education Development (SAFED) released their annual report on the status of education in Pakistan: Annual Status of Education Report 2011. (The full report in pdf format is available here.) The report highlights some of the key challenges facing education in Pakistan. In rural areas, one out of every five children … Continue reading →