Table of Contents

  • For many children, early childhood education and care (ECEC) is their first experience with other children and adults, away from their families. The promises of this experience are multiple. At this time of rapid brain development, children can play, learn new things and develop a range of skills and abilities. They can acquire a joy of learning, and they can make their first friends. Participation in ECEC also offers opportunities to detect and respond to children’s individual needs and to help all children to develop, building on their strengths.

  • The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) is the first international survey that focuses on the workforce in early childhood education and care (ECEC). The results referred to in this volume can be found in Annex D and through OECD StatLinks at the bottom of the tables and figures throughout the report.

  • French

    The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) asks early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff and leaders in nine participating countries (Chile, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, and Turkey) about their characteristics, the practices they use with children, their beliefs about children’s development and their views on the profession and on the ECEC sector. This first volume of findings from TALIS Starting Strong, Providing Quality Early Childhood Education and Care, examines these multiple factors that are known to determine quality and thereby influence children’s learning, development and well-being.

  • The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) is an international, large-scale survey of staff and leaders in early childhood education and care (ECEC). TALIS Starting Strong uses questionnaires administered to staff and leaders to gather data. Its main goal is to generate robust international information relevant to developing and implementing policies focused on ECEC staff and leaders and their pedagogical and professional practices, with an emphasis on those aspects that promote conditions for children’s learning, development and well-being. It gives ECEC staff and leaders an opportunity to share their insights, allowing them to provide input into policy analysis and development in key areas. It is also a collaboration between participating countries, the OECD and an international research consortium. TALIS Starting Strong builds on the OECD’s 20 years of experience in conducting ECEC policy reviews in the context of the Starting Strong series, the guidance of the OECD Network on Early Childhood Education and Care and the established TALIS programme collecting data from school principals and teachers.

  • French

    The report on the results of the 2018 Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) focuses on the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) environments. This first volume examines multiple factors that can affect children’s learning, development and well-being, from those that are close to children’s everyday lives to those that are more distant. This chapter provides an overview of the main findings presented in this volume and then discusses policy implications that countries can consider to raise the quality of ECEC environments.

  • Building on a rich set of information on practices used by staff in early childhood education and care centres, this chapter examines the types of interactions between staff and children and staff and parents, as well as the differences across countries in the use of these practices. It also discusses how activities are organised by groups of children, in terms of the size of the group, the number of staff and the composition of the group. The chapter ends with a section on how staff work with a diversity of children and investigates how the workforce adapts their practices to children with different backgrounds and needs.

  • This chapter describes the early childhood education and care workforce, including both staff and leaders. It examines the age distribution and gender distribution of the workforce, as well as their pre-service training and opportunities for ongoing professional development. The chapter also gives a profile of the working conditions reported by staff, including their contractual status, working hours, sources of work-related stress and job satisfaction. Recognising that interactions between children and staff are crucial to the quality of early childhood settings, the chapter explores how characteristics of the workforce are associated with process quality.

  • This chapter presents findings from the Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) 2018 on the characteristics of early childhood education and care centres: where the centres are located, what types of centres exist, how many staff they employ and which children they serve. It explores how centre characteristics are associated with characteristics of staff, such as their qualifications, as well as practices in the centre. These practices include support for children’s development across different domains, as well as activities in response to children’s diverse cultural backgrounds. Since the transition from pre-primary education to primary school is a key milestone in a child’s educational path, the chapter also explores practices in support of smooth transitions and how they relate to centre characteristics.

  • This chapter presents an overview of the funding and governance structure of early childhood education and care centres in countries participating in the Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong), using answers to the Survey and additional system-level data. TALIS Starting Strong explores centre leaders’ perceptions on effective management and sources of work-related stress. The chapter also looks into the relationship between centre governance and staff’s level of education, perceptions on spending priorities and support for professional development. It further examines the relationship between centre governance, funding and various dimensions of process quality, as well as how access to early childhood education and care for children with different socio-economic backgrounds relates to different centre governance and funding structures.