Communicating information through advocacy initiatives to create awareness among policy-makers, the workforce, professionals in ECCE, and the general population is a key objective of IECD. Successful advocacy initiatives is a collaborative effortby all ECCE sectors in providing effective information on best practices as well as highlights of new emerging developments in ECCE. This multi-sectoral approach between IECD and the participating ministries has proved to be an efficient model for programme delivery.
In the light of the above, the IECD initiated a survey in 2015, to address two main questions. These were:
- What is the respondents’ current level of general knowledge on/or a specific issue concerning early childhood?
- How does this issue influence their action or behaviour?
The study was also expected to establish a baseline on what constituted children’s well-being; this proved to be especially useful in the identification of potential knowledge gaps, beliefs or common practices that could either be protective or pose a risk to children’s welfare. Subsequently, three performance levels were set (a) highly knowledgeable, (b) knowledgeable with few gaps, (c) slightly knowledgeable with significant gaps. A baseline of 60 percent of respondents least knowledgeable was established and interestingly, this proved to be right on target prompting IECD to establish a new benchmark of 70 percent in the second round of the survey in 2017.
The results of the survey of 2015 also prompted the following series of recommendations:
- Improve knowledge on all aspects of child health and safety, attitude and practice of Day Care operators and Childminders. Build stronger links between parents, service providers, and the wider community to promote and support children character development thus improving broad educational outcomes.
- Bolster knowledge and attitude towards child and social protection, promoting understanding of legal issues pertaining to early childhood to reduce or eliminate child abuse in all its forms.
It was important to maintain as much as possible the methods used in 2015 for the advocacy survey in 2017 so that more meaningful comparisons could be made. In particular, the same sampling approaches were used, the different respondent groups were retained (Policy makers, Early Childhood Professions, Care Providers, and the Wider Community), the same themes were used (Health and Safety, Education, Parental and Community Links, Child and Social Protection, and Policy). A hallmark of the two surveys was that the same analytical tools were used. The 2017 survey was evaluative in the sense that the intention was to measure if there had been changes in the respondents’ understanding of ECCE issues through advocacy strategies and campaigns. The percentage of respondents who achieved the three performance levels is presented in the figure below.
The percentage of respondents who showed that they were highly knowledgeable surpassed the 70 percent set. This was a remarkable development which can be attributed to a number of factors including the hugely successful international conference which IECD co-hosted earlier this year. No respondent was categorized “slightly knowledgeable”, the lowest level, in 2017 compared to 40 percent in 2015. It was evident that positive changes have occurred in the respondents’ understanding of ECCE issues. The results came as a surprise and surpassed IECD’s expectation.
The challenge may be to maintain this momentum and develop measurable, actionable, and strategic interventions as the children join primary schools and beyond.
In collaboration with Early Childhood Development partners,IECD iscognizant of the need for sustained and long term investment in the early childhood sector, placing emphasis on the benefits of such investments that go well into adulthood. There is further scope to strengthen advocacy campaigns at policy level by building coalitions and sharing strategies, especially with the policy makers and other influential stakeholders.
In conclusion, the benefits of conducting advocacy evaluation is that it is formative and can help build capacity within an organization. Evaluation in the context of advocacy is relatively nascent but a fast growing discipline.
