Creating Early Childhood Education Environments | 179
Reducing child-adult ratios does cost more. Policy makers with limited budgets and overcrowded classrooms must set realistic standards and support teachers in managing group sizes meaningfully. The correct classroom size and the appropriate child-adult ratio are not unique or exact numbers. Instead, the calculation should ensure that all learners have access to environments that foster their development as human beings (UIS 2012). While working to address high child-adult ratios, countries can explore tactics to promote better classroom environments and increased interactions even in overcrowded learning spaces, including hiring assistants, using shift models, rotating children between outdoor and indoor spaces, and implementing group-based activities, among others. According to the most decisive evidence that currently exists (from primary schools in the United States), the critical issue in group size appears to be whether the reduction of ratios is sufficient to allow educators to develop new teaching skills and approaches that reduce their stress, burnout, and absenteeism. Density reduction can be achieved by using classroom space more flexibly and creatively, reducing the need for multiple pieces of furniture (Lippman 2013), and zoning spaces with learning centers that enable an agile flow during play and learning-group experience. In CEIP Andalucía, Seville (Spain), students are brought together in mixed groups (ethnicity, gender, motivation, performance), encouraging them to help each other and better understand the learning process. The whole class is regularly divided into small interactive groups of four or five students. The lessons comprise activities that last 15 or 20 minutes and are accompanied by a teacher or another adult. Once the time devoted to one activity has fi nished, the adults rotate to another group to spend some time with all the groups every lesson. Each group carries out a different activity, but the general subject matter of all activities is the same.
Key Takeaways • ECE learning environments should be child-centered in design, reflecting children’s developmental characteristics, social and cultural practices, and everyday interests. • Spaces and resources that are scaled for and accessible to children, and child-adult ratios and class sizes that allow personalized and playful interactions, promote early learning.
PUTTING POLICY INTO PRACTICE: CREATING THE RIGHT LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Governments (central, regional, and local) in low- and middle-income countries can take several steps to provide children with quality early learning environments.
