vers can be diverse, multi-layered and complex and many policies and initiatives can be in existence calling for consideration and implementation at any point in time.

It is the purpose of this part of this assignment to therefore critically analyse current policy context with a view to identifying and justifying a Strategic Change Issue. A proposal will then be outlined using educational evidence as argument.

Global institutions such as United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) all place tackling inequality and inequity at the centre of their practice and have subsequently prioritised positive early childhood development in their programmes of work. Policies such as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Education 2030 (2015), the World Bank’s Learning for All (2011) and policy drivers such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) paper, How’s Life? (2015) also, visibly place children’s rights and nurturing approaches within the health and wellbeing agenda as high importance. How’s Life? states that ‘giving children a good start in life is important for wellbeing here and now, but it also improves a child’s chances later’ (2015, p. 7). Rizvi and Lingard (2010) suggest that policies are created and written to guarantee consistency in their delivery and whilst these policies demonstrate a desire for equity, equality and social justice within education whilst showing strong links to nurture and health and wellbeing, they lack consideration into execution and moderation at national and local level. Rizvi and Lingard (2010) also suggest that whilst policies are written with intended consequences in mind, unintended consequences may also come to light bringing silent tensions with them. Policies should then be critically analysed to determine how they are represented with education and how they impact on strategic leadership. Although the World Bank has set clear long-term strategies in place, backed up by data and additional International Development Association (IDA) credits have been pledged to those countries falling behind the targets set by the World Bank, there needs to be clear accountability measures in place at both national and local level.

The World Health Organisation’s Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development: A Framework for linking SURVIVE and THRIVE to TRANSFORM health and human potential (2018) reports that all children require nurturing care to help them reach their full potential and have set out 17 global targets to be achieved by 2030. Whilst these goals are ambitious and aspirational in nature, again it can be said that the implementation and success of the policy, will only be effective through possible adaptation, careful implementation, delivery and monitoring at national and local levels. The policy also states that governments should ensure equitable coverage of interventions should be put in place, mainly for those children and young people in excluded or marginalised groups. The Scottish government seek to close the poverty related e