Access to Early Childhood Education and Care for Undocumented Children and Families - Obstacles and Promising Practices

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is defined as any formal childcare and education provided to children before they reach primary school age. What ECEC looks like and how it is governed varies significantly along national, regional or local lines. In the European Union (EU), it is mainly provided in public or publicly funded centres, and to a lesser extent in regulated home-based settings. ECEC includes services commonly called the nursery, crèche, kindergarten, day care, guarderías, preschool, maternelle, etc3. Often, ECEC focuses on childcare and early development for children below the age of three, and pre-primary education for those above three, but below the age upon which primary school begins. In some countries, the educational and care approaches are combined and age groups are not separated.