Approximately 400 educators, researchers, and policymakers convened in Bangkok in July 2024 for what was, by any objective standard, one of the most significant international discussions regarding the treatment of humanity’s youngest children. They traveled from all over the world to attend the 76th World Assembly and International Conference of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education, including nations in East Africa and Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America, and organizations like UNESCO and UNICEF. Nearly none of it appeared on any American front page. It’s worth considering that silence.
Three years after the end of a war that had shown, among many other things, what happens to societies that do not invest in the early development and welfare of children, OMEP was established in 1948. Since then, it has been in constant operation, bringing together national committees and preparatory committees from over sixty nations under a common framework: that children from birth to age eight have rights, that one of those rights is access to high-quality early education and care, and that governments are responsible for ensuring that these rights are realized. The organization has special consultative status with UNICEF, UNESCO, and the UN. Declarations from its yearly World Assembly find their way into international policy discussions, Tashkent pledges, and legal frameworks that impact how countries design their early childhood systems. However, in the United States, discussions about education typically begin with standardized testing and conclude with curriculum wars, giving little consideration to the opinions of a 75-year-old international organization with UN standing regarding the developmental rights of three-year-olds.
| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Organization | OMEP — World Organisation for Early Childhood Education |
| Founded | 1948 |
| Headquarters | Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Outgoing World President (2020–2025) | Mercedes Mayol Lassalle |
| UN/UNESCO/UNICEF Status | Special consultative status |
| Active In | 60+ countries; 66 National Committees, 17 Preparatory Committees |
| 77th World Assembly (2025) | Bologna, Italy — theme: Foundational Learning, Creativity, and Culture; 700 participants, 61 countries, 400 presentations |
| 76th World Assembly (2024) | Bangkok, Thailand — theme: “Right from the Start for ECCE: Step Beyond All Together” |
| 78th World Assembly (2026) | Poznań, Poland — July 13–18, 2026 — theme: “When a Child Speaks…” (Janusz Korczak’s pedagogical legacy) |
| Key 2024 Keynote Speaker | Mathias Urban, Director, Early Childhood Research Centre, Dublin City University |
| OMEP VP, North America & Caribbean | Asiya Foster |
| UNESCO ECCE Lead (2024) | Rokhaya Fall Dawara |
| ARNEC Chair (2024) | Sheldon Shaeffer |
| Key Global Data Point | 30% of children in countries with available data are not developmentally on track |
| Pre-Primary Enrollment Drop | 72% in 2023, down from 75% in 2020 |
| Teacher Shortage | 6 million more teachers needed for universal pre-primary enrollment by 2030 |
| Human Rights Gap | Out of 399 presentations at 2024 conference, only ~35 focused on human rights themes |
| Key Advocacy Goal | UN Decade for Early Childhood Care and Education |
| ESD Program | Running since 2009; includes ESD rating scale developed across 7 countries |
The Bangkok assembly was going on strike over what it specifically named. The current environment for young children, according to Mathias Urban, Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre at Dublin City University, is shaped by what he called a convergence of crises: the devastation caused by climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, displacement, forced migration, war and violence, poverty, and the deterioration of democracy. Polycrisis is a shorter term for the same concept, according to Sheldon Shaeffer, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood. He contended that ECCE programs need to prepare kids not just to comprehend this reality but also to live and move through it. OMEP’s Vice President for North America and the Caribbean, Asiya Foster, added the aspect that American audiences might be most familiar with: the convergence of social justice, environmental advocacy, and economic resilience. She made the case that legislators, educators, families, and communities must collaborate in order to create a generation capable of tackling truly complex issues.
The UNESCO data presented to the assembly was subtly concerning. Globally, pre-primary enrollment—just one year of structured education prior to primary school—dropped from 75% in 2020 to 72% in 2023. In nations where data are available, 30% of children are not developing normally. At least six million more teachers would need to be hired in order to achieve universal pre-primary enrollment by 2030, as the trained teacher ratio in low-income nations currently stands at 57%. Pre-primary education has a disproportionately larger financial disparity than any other educational level. The kind of national budget commitments that would make the Tashkent Declaration’s commitment to member states to guarantee inclusive and equitable early childhood services a reality are still pending.
Looking at the outcomes of the 2025 assembly in Bologna—700 participants from 61 countries, 400 presentations, and a World Declaration adopted on November 29—it seems that this organization is working steadily and seriously on a problem that the nations most suited to take the lead are routinely ignoring. The pedagogical legacy of Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish physician and educator who pioneered children’s rights before the Holocaust claimed his life, will be the focus of the 78th World Assembly, which is set to take place in Poznań, Poland in July 2026. Korczak’s ideas about listening to children as an act of justice are still as important as they were eight decades ago. In a different media setting, that kind of intellectual seriousness might result in coverage. Whether this one will rise to meet it is still up in the air.
