This brief presents findings from acensus of the early development of Tuvalu’s children,identifies areas of need, and puts forth recommendations toaddress gaps in service delivery to provide every child inTuvalu with the best start in life. Universal health careand education are essential in supporting a strong andhealthy development of Tuvalu’s citizens. Access to qualityhealth care services and the opportunity to participate inquality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) provideschildren with the foundation they need to be ready to learnat school. The Government of Tuvalu has invested heavily inhealth and education, health care is free for all citizensand education is free for those aged 3-18 years. As such,encouragingly the country exhibits few disparities in accessto health and education services, including that forchildren. For example, boys and girls have equitable accessto pre-primary education, and policy mandates that ECCEcenters cater to the needs of children with special needs.The Pacific Early Age Readiness and Learning (PEARL) programfunding by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE),implementing by the World Bank, provides technicalassistance and analytical work to improve the participatingcountry’s evidence-base on school readiness and early gradeliteracy to inform short and medium-term policy agendas,including baseline survey on school readiness and earlygrade reading levels and piloting interventions. Herein,this brief presents data regarding the status of children’searly health and development, as well as their participationin preschool and their learning environments at home. At acountry level, this evidence will help to informintervention strategies and policy planning in earlychildhood to strengthen the ECCE system with the goal ofensuring thatall children in Tuvalu reach theirdevelopmental potential.
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