Participants in the international workshop on early childhood care and education left filled with hope and expectations for the future. With their action plan in their hands, they will all go back to their countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to try and put the child at the centre of preoccupations as from birth. The minister of Education, Dharam Gokhool, guaranteed that ?recommendations will be examined by the government?. However, he made it clear: ?Ambitious aims like the ones discussed here will also have to be practical so we will have to closely examine them before going ahead.?

The general idea of this workshop was to focus the system on the child. This will have to go through three aspects, according to the participants - child?s rights approach, integrated programming as well as training and capacity building. At country level, Mauritian participants intend to organise a two-day advocacy workshop to set up an overarching body in August or September this year.

Participants also signed a pledge that recognises the rights of children and commits them to do everything they can to make those rights respected. The president of the Groupement de Réflexion sur l?Education et la Formation (Gref), Vel Munien, who helped organise the workshop, insisted on the importance of that pledge.

National committee

The first step in trying to make this workshop useful will be to send an official letter to the different ministries or agencies with the recommendations of the workshop and decide on the follow-up by the end of this week. Then, a national committee will be set up by the end of May by the focal points participants. By the end of June, there will be a two-day multi-partner consultative meeting for need assessment and development of a national strategy before the first international meeting to be held in November. Between July 2007 and November 2008, specialists in audiovisual and production of learning materials will be in charge of drafting manuals and support materials.

The main objective of this workshop was to respond to the recommendations formulated in Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report of Unesco ? ?Strong Foundations: ECCE?. This is why the main organiser, Cyril Dalais, adviser to the ministry of Education, wants the new strategy to be ready by 2009 when the 20th anniversary of the Convention of Human Rights is to be celebrated.

There is no doubt that the Mauritian child will take advantage of a strategy that will ensure that his/her specificities are taken into consideration. The idea of developing an integrated/inclusive, child-centred programme for all children is only one of the initiatives that participants hope to develop in their own country. Mauritius has actually started doing so with the curriculum reform that has been approved by the cabinet. It still remains to be implemented?