ISSA Launches New Corporate Partnership with IBM

January 2008

ISSA is pleased to announce the start of a new partnership with the IBM Global Work/Life Fund. This cooperation is based on the shared belief that the early years are important for providing a strong foundation for future development in life and that access to quality care and education is a right that all children should have. The IBM Global Work/Life Fund was developed to improve the quality and increase the supply of dependent care in communities where IBM employees live and work.  Through this fund, IBM has committed more than $270 million to dependent care programs and services around the world, and is frequently recognized for its commitment to helping employees manage issues of work and life. For more information on these initiatives go to http://www.ibm.com/ibm/responsibility/s4_4.shtml.

Wishing to support its employees and to give their families tools to promote early literacy, IBM recently placed a large order for ISSA’s “Opening Magic Doors” Activity Kits, to be delivered in 8 countries where IBM operates: Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, and UK. Each kit includes an activity book which provides parents and caregivers suggestions for many ways to support and extend children’s development and learning in a fun way. The kits also include four children’s books as a starting point for these activities.

In January 2008 ISSA and IBM are launching a new partnership project aiming to: (1) develop leadership capacity in the ISSA network in the area of pedagogical standards and (2) promote quality education in communities in selected countries by training teachers and parents. As research indicates that high quality early childhood education programs enhance children’s academic and social outcomes, ISSA promotes excellence in early childhood programs through ISSA’s Pedagogical Standards. The Standards are based on the principles and values of ISSA and define quality in teaching practice, the classroom environment, and interactions with families and communities.

The Standards function both as a tool for teachers to guide their professional development and improve the quality of their teaching, as well as an assessment instrument to formally recognize high quality teaching practices. The Standards are used as the basis for trainings, mentoring, self-evaluation, and teacher certification to audiences inside and outside the ISSA network. In order to ensure that the Standards incorporate the most current research and evidence-based practice in the field of early childhood education, ISSA began an in-depth revision of the Standards in early 2007.

The partnership project with IBM will support ISSA’s efforts to further revise and pilot the Standards and to develop and test a mentorship system to accompany them. The project will begin in two countries in 2008 and in four countries in 2009. In implementing the project, ISSA will work closely with its national member organizations in those countries.  

For more information, please contact Liana Ghent at lghent@issa.nl.

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