The Seventh World Bank Europe and Central Asia Education Conference will be held at the Central University Library in Bucharest, Romania on April 7-8, 2014. The theme of the conference is "Strengthening Early Childhood Education Systems: Investing Early to Ensure Effective Learning", and it is co-organized with the Ministry of National Education of Romania, UNICEF, and the Open Society Foundations.
The main objective of the conference is to provide a learning forum for policy makers and education experts from the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region to discuss, together with international experts, UNICEF, Open Society Foundations, and World Bank specialists, the importance of early childhood education in forming the basis of future learning, especially for the most disadvantaged children.
Many countries in the region are seeking to extend education systems to include younger children in pre-primary or preschool classrooms. This conference recognizes the importance of children’s earliest experiences with formal learning in setting their academic trajectory and will explore mechanisms to support continuity for young children and their families, as children make the important transition to ‘student’.
The conference focuses on improving institutional and governance frameworks, financing mechanisms, access and inclusion to early education, teacher training, and measurement of school readiness to support all children to smoothly transition from preschool to primary education. Please see the draft agenda for more information.