Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) --  UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay delivered a speech in front of the delegates of the World Conference on Early Childhood Care and Education. Global forum held once in a decade this time is organized in Tashkent. Around 2500 visitors including 70 sector ministers took part in large scaled event called to define pathways of preschool education development all across the world for coming years.

"Uzbekistan is the country with geography and history that gifted us such world famous cities as Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. From the earliest times this country distinguished itself with strive towards scientific knowledge. Avicenna and Al-Khorezmi to whom we owe a tribute for algebra became symbols of this strive.

Therefore, leadership traditions go together with commitment to education. His Excellency President Mirziyoyev prioritizing preschool education and care ensured more than twofold increase of enrollment in preschool education just in several years – from 27% in 2017 to 67% in 2021", – emphasized Madam Azoulay.

Noting undoubted progress in engagement of the governments in early childhood development in her address, Audrey Azoulay also pointed that a number of countries lag behind and this should be overcome by joint efforts.

"In Uzbekistan we have an opportunity to send the world a strong signal based on the UNESCO’s commitment to make 2022 a year of mobilization of efforts targeting education. Here in Tashkent we have to define a model of society we want to live in, a society which takes care of children, guiding them and paying them all the attention they worth", – said UNESCO Director-General, concluding her speech.

Tashkent Declaration defining international agenda in the field of preschool education by 2030 will be approved on November 16th as the final document by the outcome of the conference. The final document will be prepared during consultation process at the side events of the conference, translated into six official languages of UN and submitted to all the UNESCO member states.