The 15th annual Summer Institute on Early Childhood Development
The Summer Institute is an annual collaboration between the School of Early Childhood at George Brown College and the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. The Institute strives to offer timely information to inform research, policy and practice.
ECE can bring a wide range of benefits – for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on “quality”. Expanding access without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or benefits for society. Federal funding for the provinces and territories emphasizes more child care spaces for vulnerable communities. Targeted expansion could be problematic given the historic correlation between inadequate programs and marginal populations.
The 15th Summer Institute examines the challenges in promoting quality while targeting expansion. Featured speakers include Sir Kevan Collins, head of the UK Education Endowment Foundation, providing evidenced-based evaluation of the policies and practices that work – and don’t work – to improve children’s outcomes, and Dr. Angela James draws on indigenous pedagogy to strengthen early years practice.
