Early Childhood Development

**3**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

in this region.

education, evolution

**1. Introduction**

and education agendas.

Compulsory Preschool in Latin

and Future Challenges

*Ana Ancheta Arrabal*

America: Comparative Evolution

The establishment of Early Childhood Education (ECE) as a key to the success of different aims on the global agendas—Education for All Framework (EFA), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), among others—has contributed to the extension of ECE programs and preschool around the world. Latin American countries have also advocated for the development agendas, with the essential role played by education for sustainable human development. Over the last decades, these countries have made dramatic efforts to increase preschool coverage, with a broad success that favors the level of attainment in primary education. Even when this expansion has been broadly recognized as a significant progress for the improvement of ECE access for many young children in the region, it has been acknowledged that the extent of this expansion has been very unequal. The comparative study helps to reveal the different developments, as well as the diverse situations and political agendas for ECE, when Latin American countries adopt international agendas to their particular realities and education contexts. In this view, this study aims to identify the broad trends trying to include the affluent frames and evolutions of compulsory preschool in Latin America in order to open a space for debate around the particular pathways that this ECE policy has implicated

**Keywords:** preschool education, Latin America, comparative research, compulsory

Over the last decades, the establishment of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) as a key to the success of different aims on the international agendas for education, which is based on the recognition that ECE services can contribute to these goals, has been one of the main issues of the global agenda. As a matter of fact, early childhood education has become one of the areas identified for improvement within this framework, as the UNESCO-sponsored World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education: Building the Wealth of Nations in Moscow, September 2010 outlined in its purpose. Hence, the Moscow Framework for Action and Cooperation, adopted by the Conference [1], moved ECE higher up on political agendas by planning a strategic position for ECE in the now current development
