Millions of children miss out as global early learning funding gap widens, UNESCO warns

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has warned there is a growing gap when it comes to funding for early learning globally.

The Global Report on Early Childhood Care and Education has been developed in partnership with UNICEF and the OECD and will be officially launched on 20 November 2026 on World Children's Day.

UNESCO states that funding gaps and disparities are preventing millions of children under 8 years old from receiving quality education.

Turning investment into access for children

The report entitled Financing for Equitable and Inclusive Access to Quality Early Childhood Care and Education will identify funding gaps and recommendations for governments on how to better target funds.

The report provides global and regional data on enrolments and current updates on funding gaps to help guide discussion around achieving universal access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education by 2030.

For Australia, it will be interesting to see how funding decisions have translated into accessible services/resources. We will need to look at the whole report once released to see if there are any practical takeaways for Australia.

Global findings to inform the funding debate

The report will be launched from UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Government officials, experts and youth representatives will be attending. Plenary sessions will also be available via live stream.

Educators and providers will find it interesting to see how other global systems are funding in the early learning sector and how we can draw on this. There may be some practical takeaways from the report that the Australian Government can lean into.

View UNESCO's report details here.