Europe and Central Asia

A workforce development plan for the early childhood care and education sector in Ireland is the culmination of a significant process of research and consultation across the diverse range of stakeholders in the sector. The result is the identification of a number of agreed perspectives on the type of workforce needed to support the development of high quality Early Childhood Education and Care services in Ireland, as well as the main challenges associated with achieving these goals. 

This plan sets out the scope and vision for workforce development in Ireland, presents the main challenges and opportunities, and reveals the implementation strategy.

Report on the Working Conditions of the Early Years Education and Care Sector 2017 primarily focuses on the poor working conditions and below average pay scales of all those working in the early years sector in Ireland. Diving into several issues impacting services across all provinces, in both rural and urban areas, the report includes sections on:

• policy related issues for consideration;
• working conditions in the early childhood sector;
• areas of concern as views by early years professionals;
• progressive early years investment in other EU countries; and
• recommendations from the joint committee on children and youth affairs.

The report concludes that the lack of recognition for this profession, as well as a lack of investment and high staff turnover rate cause serious sustainability issues for early years services in Ireland.

Proper supervision enables home visitors to form supportive relationships with families. Supervision: supporting professionals and enhancing service quality focuses on supporting the supervision of home visitors in order to guide home visitors in their work.

Through these modules, readers may: 

• review the meaning of supervision and the contribution it makes to support quality in the delivery of services and professional development of the home visitor;
• reflect on the supervisory role and related activities in supporting professional development in the work environment;
• explore the meaning of lifelong learning and professional development; and
• reflect on current supervision practices as related to home visiting and identified concrete actions and approaches that can be used to strengthen them.

This module belongs to the Supporting Families for Nurturing Care resource modules for home visitors.

Inclusive early childhood education environment self-reflection tool was developed in order to identify, analyze and promote the main characteristics of quality Inclusive early Childhood Education for all children. This tool was designed to address the need for professionals and staff in early years settings to reflect on their inclusiveness. 

The tool consists of eight sets of questions, which address the following aspects of inclusion:

1. Overall welcoming atmosphere
2.  flexibly and according to the needs of the user, setting or organization.
3. Inclusive social environment
4. Child-centred approach
5. Child-friendly physical environment
6. Materials for all children
7. Opportunities for communication for all
8. Inclusive teaching and learning environment
9. Family-friendly environment

The questions presented in this tool are designed to be used flexibly and according to the needs of the user, setting or organization.

Quality through Professionalisation: Local Evaluation of the Tallaght National Early Years Access Initiative is a report on the evaluation of the Quality through Professionalisation programme, one of 11 projects under the National Early Years Access Initiative. This three-year initiative aimed to improve the quality and outcomes of services in the early years sector. At the national level, the initiative focused on the establishment of an evidence base contributing to improvements in practice and influencing policy changes. At the local level, the initiative focused on building the delivery capacity of local projects.

Five preschools were invited to participate in the local evaluation of the Tallaght NEYAI; all five preschools were based in Tallaght in South County Dublin. The evaluation approach focused on the following broad areas of investigation:

1. Conducting a profile analysis of the preschools involved in the programme
2. Conducting an investigation of the impact of the Tallaght NEYAI on the early years educators
3. Assessing the quality of provision within 4 of the participating services post-training delivery
4. Conducting a process evaluation investigating the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of the training programme

Key findings include information about preschool characteristics, quality within preschools, the impact of training on educators, and trainers' and staff experiences of the initiative.

Professional development is essential for early years teachers. Recognizing this fact, the Romanian education system aims to promote high quality professional development programs for teachers in order to improve their work. This study investigated kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of their in-service training programs; including the impact these programs had on their professional development processes and classroom practices. Eighty-four kindergarten teachers responded to an online, structured questionnaire focused on:

• activities considered necessary for teacher training programs;
• factors that influence the level of professional development;
• types of activities based on programs that may influence classroom practice;
• the level at which programs focused on specific aspects of educational practice; and
• aspects that might influence the teacher's educational practice.

Findings show a significant difference between the perceptions of beginners and those with more than 10 years experience. While the new teachers tend to focus more on the visibility and status to the profession, more experienced teachers focus on approach on professionalization.

Social Status and Professional Development of Early Childhood and Preschool Teacher Profession: Sociological and Pedagogical Theoretical Frame takes a look at the relationship between the concepts of social status and professional development in the early childhood and preschool teacher workforce,. The paper aims to determine early childhood and preschool teachers attitudes about the position and the relevance of their profession in their society. It further aims to explore whether or not their is a connection between such attitudes and these professionals' attitudes about professional development.

This Core Competency Framework has been developed for all disciplines, professions and staff groups undertaking a clinical role within NHS Scotland. The twin aims of the framework are
(1) to describe the key areas of child protection work that are common and core across all disciplines, professions and staff groups with a clinical role, and (2) to describe the recommended core knowledge and understanding necessary to support these areas of work. Although this framework will be most appropriate for those with an identified role in relation to protecting children, the information it contains will be of interest to anyone who needs to know how to recognise and respond to concerns about children, in the course of their other, more regular duties.

The early years workforce: a fragmented picture, produced by the Education Policy Institute, gathered administrative data about early years providers and staff in England. The aim of this report was to create a clearer picture of the demographics, pay and qualification levels of the early years workforce. Further, the report set out to understand how these characteristics vary across school-based settings, private, voluntary and independent providers and childminders.

This project used readily available, official resources in order to generate new researched questions that require additional analysis. The early years workforce: a fragmented picture provides a glance into early years provision in England, data about the workforce and the implications for children in funded provision.

Competent Educators of the 21st Century: Principles of Quality Pedagogy is a policy document that defines quality teaching practices when working with children from 3 to 10 years old, and their families, to better support the child's development and well-being. 

This resource contains:

• A brief history of the development of the Principles, including references to the international documents on which they are built,
• Explanations of the values the Principles represent for ISSA and its member NGOs,
• Short suggestions for how they can be used and by whom,
• Brief descriptions of each of the 7 Focus Areas that provide the framework for the Principles of Quality Pedagogy,
• A list of the 20 Principles and the 85 Indicators that describe how to apply these Principles.

In addition to the to the four full PDF versions, ISSA has translated the Quality Principles into two Romani dialects: Vlaxicko and Rumungricko. You can find these on the ISSA website.