Canadian Council on Learning | Conseil Canadien sur l'Apprentissage

Information strategy necessary to measure success in early childhood learning, says CCL

August 29, 2007 Ottawa—While the state of early childhood development in Canada seems sound, a national organization is calling for a comprehensive strategy to gather more and better data on how our youngest Canadians learn.

The call from the Canadian Council on Learning comes with the release of its report, “The State of Early Childhood Learning” in Ottawa today.

“Children are our country’s future,” said Dr. Paul Cappon, CEO of the Canadian Council on Learning. “We believe it’s essential to know more about how well our children are learning during the crucial period of the first five years of life.”

The report outlines a number of indicators of early childhood learning. In the most general terms, most Canadian children are born healthy, but the report notes that nearly 3 in 10 children entering the school system are vulnerable due to a cognitive or behavioural delay or disability that may affect their school performance and later life.

The CCL report also notes that a large body of data is already collected on early childhood development, ranging from databases on early childhood development maintained by several provinces (e.g. Manitoba and Quebec) to initiatives including the Early Development Instrument, the Early Years Evaluation, and the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth.

Pursuant to the 2000 Early Childhood Development Agreement, the federal government worked collaboratively with the provinces and territories to identify a set of common indicators. The governments continue to share data so that each can publicly report on early childhood well-being. The federal government’s biennial report, “The Well-Being of Canada’s Young Children,” includes information on children’s physical, cognitive and emotional development as well as on the families and communities in which they live.

 “As valuable as these reports are, we believe there is need for Canadians to have a more detailed picture of the state of learning among our youngest children,” said Cappon. “Early childhood learning is about much more than school-readiness; it is about life readiness. We should know more about the best environment, methods and practices to help our children learn.”

In an introduction, the report states that if gaps in knowledge on early childhood learning are not addressed, emerging challenges may be overlooked and effective tools to address learning challenges may not be developed.

“But while the development and implementation of such a comprehensive data strategy will not be easy, these efforts will provide more specific, consistent and comprehensive evidence that everyone who has a part to play in early childhood learning—parents, child-care providers, governments—can use to make the best decisions on behalf of Canadian children,” said Cappon. “Canadians need to know whether we as a country are giving future generations the best possible start.”

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The Canadian Council on Learning is an independent, not-for-profit corporation funded through an agreement with Human Resources and Social Development Canada. Its mandate is to promote and support evidence-based decisions about learning throughout all stages of life, from early childhood through to the senior years.

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