Description:
This research Caring and Learning Together is focused on a current, major development, namely, the integration of early childhood care and education through the transfer of responsibility for the sector to education ministries. The study has been designed to generate better understanding and to evaluate this development from the perspectives of countries and local authorities that have adopted this policy option and those that have not. As such, it draws on the experiences of Brazil, Jamaica, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden and the city of Ghent (in the Flemish-speaking Community of Belgium) in opting for integration-within education; and on those of the Flemish-speaking Community of Belgium, France, Finland and Hungary taking a different approach to governance, namely either integration of ECCE within social welfare (in the case of Finland) or multiple-agency arrangements (in the case of Belgium Flanders, France and Hungary). This report presents a synthesis of the historical contexts, rationales, processes and consequences of integrating ECCE within education, the views of the countries that apportion ECCE responsibility differently, and some reflections and policy recommendations on the issue.