Multinational Education for Early Childhood Service Professionals within the African Region: Experience and Impact in Tanzania of the ECDVU

The provision of Early Childhood Education, Care and Development (ECD) services has developed in Tanzania from a very low baseline in 2000 to a fully articulated national policy grounded in local and international research on child development, with technical guidance from a group of indigenous ECD specialists working with colleagues in government, NGOs, educational institutions, and civil society. The expertise of specialist groups was nurtured by an international, graduate-level education programme, known as the Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU), that brought together cohorts of professionals from a total of seventeen African countries over five deliveries (2001-2017) in a computer-mediated, distance learning framework. This presentation will describe the processes through which participants were identified to enroll in the ECDVU, and how the programme developed its curriculum and delivery structure, highlighting the key role that a multi-sectoral, multi-organizational network can play in promoting child well-being and advancing ECD capacity development. It will report on the learning experiences of participants, and on their difficulties and successes as graduates in putting their knowledge to work in the development of public policy and professional practices in a country facing severe economic constraints and challenges of multicultural coordination.