Capacity Development

Focus Areas

The Early Childhood Program provides technical assistance and support to educate and provide ongoing professional development opportunities for early childhood professionals. To support the early childhood sector, the program fosters professional national, regional, and international organizations and networks that advocate for and implement high-quality early childhood programs that reach the most vulnerable children.

In Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Early Childhood Program seeks to ensure the sustainability of the Open Society Institute’s flagship early education reform project (Step by Step), which is institutionalized in a regional network of national NGOs (the International Step by Step Association, ISSA). To this end, the program provides significant core funding and strategic and technical support to national NGOs and ISSA.

OSI has begun to engage with ARNEC and ADEA, the professional early childhood development networks in Asia and Africa respectively. In Bangladesh, the program continues to collaborate with BRAC University’s Institute of Educational Development to implement the first post-graduate degree programs (a certificate, diploma and master’s degree) for early childhood professionals based inside the country. The program aims to extend postgraduate degree programs throughout the region, and embed selected courses in higher education programs in other regions.