Early childhood development in Tonga

Early childhood development is the holistic development of children from conception to about eight years. Development is defined as the process of change in which children come to master increasingly complex levels of moving, thinking, feeling, and interacting with people and objects in their environment. Recent studies in Tonga show poor reading outcomes in the first three grades of primary education, and little understanding from communities of the importance of the first years of a child's life on development, learning, and later successes. The Pacific Early Age Readiness and Learning (PEARL) Program, financed by the Global Partnership for Education and implemented by the World Bank, aims to support Pacific Island countries and their development partners in building capacity to design, implement, and monitor evidence-based integrated policies and programs that prepare children and their families for primary school. Tongan Early Human Capability Index (TeHCI) measures the capability of children rather than developmental delay or pathology. The positive and negative aspects of how a child is developing are assessed with the TeHCI, which has the potential to place a child on a developmental trajectory rather than simply a bimodal pass or fail outcome. The results from the TeHCI also show that over half of all children in Tonga attend school for the first time without exposure to any early education program, which includes some form of preschool, kindergarten, early education center, or playgroup. The results were disseminated to all communities across the country through a series of public meetings, provoking discussions that led to the development of a pilot community-based intervention aimed at encouraging parents and caregivers to play and interact with their children to improve school readiness. This report not only provides an excellent roadmap for child-friendly policies and programs for Tonga, it also exemplifies a process that can be emulated by other countries, one of true local engagement and ownership, with technical support provided to build local system-wide monitoring capacity.