Impact
Child-friendly schools supported by UNICEF have helped change traditional disciplinarian teacher attitudes and promoted child-centered teaching and learning practices. These child-friendly environments have shown a clear positive impact on learner participation and achievement levels in schools. UNICEF's advocacy for a community-based approach to early childhood care has led to the development of a national policy ratified by 10 different government ministries. The policy calls for a coordinated effort between key sectors to meet the needs of young children. As a result of this policy, UNICEF China received an increase in donor funding to begin a joint project between the Ministries of Health and Education.
The Department of Planning and Development under the Ministry of Education have implemented a national Educational Management Information System initially piloted in UNICEF-supported provinces. This represents significant progress in improving data quality and marks a step toward identifying discrepancies often masked by the data, such as those involving drop-outs. In a departure from past practices, the government has begun collecting school-based data disaggregated by sex and ethnicity and is building a database on key educational indicators such as attendance and completion rates, student achievement levels, and the state of school infrastructure and facilities.
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