Alternative Global Issues

The article that was of most interesting to me is the Zambian Early Childhood Development project. The article discusses the full impact of the anti-malaria campaign on Zambia’s human capital development, The project created a new comprehensive instrument for assessing children’s physical, socio-emotional, and cognitive development before and throughout their schooling careers. The first assessment tool of its kind in Zambia. Completed in May 2010, the Zambian Child Assessment Test (ZamCAT) combines existing child development measures with newly developed items in order to provide a broad assessment of children of preschool age in the Zambian context. After careful calibration of the new survey tool through two rounds of piloting, a first cohort of 1,686 children born in 2004 was assessed between July and December 2010. In 2011, successful follow-up occurred with 1,250 of those children, and an additional follow-up is planned for June-August 2012. The early stages of the project demonstrate that comprehensive child assessments are feasible within standard population-based household surveys. The ZECDP collaborators hope that the data collected as part of this project, as well as future work in this area, will not only improve understanding of child development in this context but also help identify key interventions towards improved outcomes in a rapidly changing developing world. Having an valid and reliable assessment tool for any study, especially this one can determine what is needed in Early Childhood. Even in other countries, early childhood education is so important. References Zambian Early Childhood, (2012). Zambian early childhood development project. Retrieved http://developingchild.harvard.edu/activities/global_initiative/zambian_project/