• From today until Friday, more than 35 participants from all over the world will meet in the Child Rights Home, in Leiden to discuss quality in early childhood environments.
• The meeting is hosted by ISSA, in partnership with the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, UNICEF and UNESCO.

As a result of a joint collaboration with UNICEF, UNESCO and the Bernard van Leer Foundation, ISSA proudly hosts an international consultation bringing together more than thirty five early childhood development experts from all over the world. From today until Friday, participants will discuss and compare methods to measure quality in early childhood development (ECD). The aim is to work together on defining a framework that combines the best practices of the existing measurements and toolkits to reach consensus on quality indicators for ECD programmes and services that can be used for national, regional and global tracking. This initiative responds to the increasing emphasis of including quality analysis when addressing children’s learning and development, as stated in international agendas like the UN post-2015 development goals. Evidence shows that, together with increasing access to early childhood development services, investing in its quality has a crucial and positive impact in the development of the children’s full potential. Therefore defining the key indicators for it becomes an urgent need and a great challenge. For the coming two days, representatives from organizations like The World Bank, The International Labour Organization, The Open Society Foundations, Save the Children, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Arab Resource Collective, the Association for Childhood Education International and many others, together with academics from universities such as Yale (USA), Ambedkar (Delhi) and Macquarie (Sydney) will take part in the discussions and lay the foundations for a Community of Practice on measuring quality in early childhood environments, for further peer learning and collaboration. For more information on this international meeting, please contact Alejandra Mahiques, amahiques@issa.nl