Early Childhood Education

For every child, access to early childhood education

Boy holding legos

Although Türkiye has made great strides towards increasing the accessibility of its early childhood education services, it still has one of the lowest net enrolment rates for pre-primary education among OECD countries.

We are prioritizing accessible, inclusive and good quality education for the earliest learners, especially the most vulnerable. Our programming focuses on four key objectives.

  1. Expanding services

UNICEF works closely with the Ministry of National Education (MONE) to increase access to early childhood education services, focusing on the most vulnerable children. These services include formal opportunities in schools and non-formal opportunities in community playrooms or through home visits. UNICEF is working with MONE to construct good quality spaces to accommodate more children.

  1. Improving quality

We are working with MONE to revise the preschool education curriculum and to train teachers throughout Türkiye on the newly revised programme

  1. Transforming practices by engaging parents and communities

Working with MONE, we are engaging with families and communities to show them the importance of early childhood education using a range social behavioural change techniques.

  1. Increasing investment and improving policy and legislation

UNICEF is supporting MONE in improving policy and legislation and identifying areas for improvement.

We are also supporting changes to the law on implementing community and home-based early childhood education for children who live in disadvantaged and remote areas.

Related videos

UNICEF
As part of a home-based early childhood care and education model, "My Playbox" focuses specifically on children under the age of six and their families living in unfavourable conditions with limited or no access to early childhood education services. Volunteer teachers will support home-based early childhood education by visiting children at their homes at least once a month and using My Playbox. This model will benefit 5,000 children in the 20 pilot districts involved in the project. The project is carried out within the scope of the “Increasing Quality of and Access to Early Childhood Education Project”, and in partnership with the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the European Union (EU) and UNICEF.
UNICEF
With the newly opened kindergarten classes, more children have the opportunity to benefit from pre-school education. As part of the “Increasing Quality of and Access to Early Childhood Education Project,” 300 pre-schools with 600 classrooms will be installed to support schools that especially need physical space, enabling 30,000 children to access early childhood education services every year. The project is being implemented in cooperation by the Ministry of National Education and UNICEF, and co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Türkiye.