Education & Care

Research suggests that, when it comes to early childhood education and care, quality matters most. A growing number of countries are establishing monitoring systems to ensure quality and accountability in these programmes.

This new publication explores how countries can develop and use these systems to enhance service and staff quality for the benefit of child development. It offers an international perspective and concrete examples to help policy makers, monitoring experts and practitioners in the field develop their own monitoring policies and practices.

The quality and qualifications of the childcare and early years workforce are steadily improving and have never been better. But the sector has reached tipping point, with increasing evidence that early years practitioners are severely under strain.

The public funding environment is set to remain challenging over the next five years. However the substantial investment in early education and childcare that is being made through the Tax-Free Childcare scheme and the doubling of the free childcare entitlement for working families provides a vital opportunity to support workforce development. This briefing makes a series of practical recommendations, many of which do not require additional public funding, which seek to remove barriers to entry and progression and support the sector to retain and make the most of the talented individuals already working in childcare and early years.

The appendices from the Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators Related Professional Criteria, provide clear and concise guidance on essential knowledge and skills for infant-toddler educators.

Illustrating how criteria from various partners can be used together to support the preparation and professional development of infant-toddler educators, this document includes related professional criteria, tools and child development benchmarks.

ECEC professionals’ qualifications and working conditions are inseparably linked to the quality of education and care children receive. This series of reports present why do workforce qualifications, education, training and working conditions matter for better child development. Each of the reports also describe where each of the respective countries (Slovak Republic, Japan and Finland) stand compared to other countries in terms of workforce qualifications, training and working conditions, what are the challenges they face and what strategies have been employed in order to address those challenges.

Early Years Workforce Strategy is the early childhood education and care workforce strategy for Australia from 2012 through 2016. It sets out a vision agreed upon by Australian governments, which aims to build and support the early childhood education and care profession. The strategy aims to guide governments, as well as the sector as a whole, to: deliver a sustainable, highly qualified and professional workforce; foster a flexible and responsive workforce capable of identifying and delivering services in response to the needs of children and families; and support ECEC staff to work in a more integrated way with the broader early childhood development (ECD) workforce including the range of professionals that work with children and their families across health and family services. The following five priority areas have been identified as essential components of achieving a sustainable and highly qualified ECEC workforce: 1) a professional workforce; 2) a growing workforce; 3) a qualified workforce; 4) a responsive workforce; and 5) a collaborative workforce.

The strategy which builds on 2009’s Investing in the Early Years –A National Early Childhood Development Strategy, reflects a commitment by governments to address the immediate priorities for the ECEC workforce, and at the same time working towards a long-term broader strategy for the workforce with a focus on supporting more integrated ways of working across the ECD sector.

Commissioned By:
Standing Council on School Education and Early Childhood

2012

Ultimately, high-quality ECEC services must not only be accessible, affordable, and available, but also desirable and relevant to all families and responsive to changing demographics and evolving needs in order to be successful.

The recommendations that follow are intended to provide a comprehensive set of guiding principles for policymaking at the local, national, and federal levels, as well as for funders and other stakeholders, and are based on the knowledge generated from the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years’ (TFIEY) convenings. While these recommendations are focused on issues in ECEC that may particularly impact children in a low-income or migrant context, they are considerations that can benefit all young children and families in ECEC systems across the EU and US regardless of their background. Investing in inclusive, high-quality ECEC is a win-win situation: for all children and their families and for society.

Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress.

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

This up to date text is suitable for students on all early years and early childhood courses as well as interested practitioners. It looks at the current structure of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce in different countries, each of which represents a distinct philosophical tradition, tracing what has shaped this structure and examining how politics and policy have moulded the workforce over time. Each chapter analyses historical, philosophical and political developments in the respective country and looks at key theorists, the concepts of childhood that have shaped the workforce and the pedagogical approach. The unique aspects of each country are highlighted along with a consideration of what the future might hold for the workforce. Students and practitioners will achieve a more critical understanding of current practice and the beliefs which underpin particular pedagogical approaches while being encouraged to question their own values and practice.

This study consolidates the evidence base across the EU28 regarding the diversity of the teaching workforce with regard to migrant and/or minority background. Increasing diversity within the teaching profession is one potential response to the evolving needs of an increasingly multicultural learner population. In particular, the study has: identified and analysed the existing statistical data on the current diversity of the teaching workforce; explored the prevalence of the different barriers to teacher diversity; mapped the policies and initiatives implemented; and, examined the evidence on the effectiveness of the policies. To do so, the study methodology comprised: a literature review drawing on both European and international research; primary research with national experts for the compilation of 28 country profiles; ten in-depth cases studies of policies/initiatives promoting teacher diversity; a comparative analysis of findings; a virtual Policy Delphi; and, two high-level diversity expert seminars. In this executive summary, we set out the main findings and recommendations emerging from the research.