Project
About the Project
Project name: SEQUENCES – Self and external Evaluation of QUality in EUrope to Nourish Childhood Education Services
Project number: 2016-1-IT02-KA201-024628
Duration: 30 months
Dates: 01/09/2016 – 31/12/2018
“At a time of unprecedented economic and social challenges, the importance of giving all our children a solid start in life by providing high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is crucial” (Eurydice and Eurostat Report, “Key Data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe”, 2014).
Looking at researches and analyses from OECD and the European Commission, it is clear that there is a consensus at policy-level on the fact that Quality Assurance has to be at the centre of the political priorities for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in European countries. A lot remains to be done at implementation-level in terms of awareness raising, development of methodologies and techniques for adequate Quality Assurance management, and competences required for monitoring and assessing the provision among educators, childminders, parents and families in order to reinforce the educational dimension of the services – too often treated as pure care.
The SEQUENCES project is a bottom-up reaction to the need of improving the quality of Early Childhood Education and Care provision in Europe, as emerged from literature and partners’ experiences from the ground. It brings together organizations from 7 countries – Italy, Romania, Ireland, Malta, Lithuania, Hungary and Belgium, joining the efforts of the specific and relevant categories of stakeholders: private and public ECEC providers – respectively Cooperativa SEM (IT) and Grắdinitắ cu P.P Zấna Zorilor (RO), national-level education trade unions – Lithuanian Education Trade Union (LT) and Malta Union of Teachers (MT); a VET provider delivering continuous training to ECEC professionals, with professional expertise in Quality Assurance – FORMA.Azione srl (IT), academia with the Observatory Centre for Educational Development (HU) of the Corvinus University of Budapest; national policy-level non-profit organizations – Early Childhood Ireland (IE), EU networks of relevant stakeholders – European Parents’ Association (BE).
The specific objectives pursued by partners are 1) to promote quality culture and quality assurance approaches in ECEC settings; 2) to develop ready-to-use tools for self and external evaluation with transnational validity and referred to the 5 quality areas identified in the “Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care” from the EU Commission (access, workforce, curriculum, evaluation/monitoring, governance/funding) and 3) to come up with guidelines and recommendations for the different target groups identified, in order to support their acquisition of quality management approaches.
Introduction
Enhancing the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in order to improve the quality of services for better learning outcomes and ensure a good start in education for all. In particular through projects aiming to develop a holistic and age appropriate education pedagogical framework, including professionalising the workforce for ECEC as well as ensuring that the benefits of early childhood education are carried through to other school education levels, and projects that develop new models of implementation, governance and funding for ECEC.
Learning and education do not begin with compulsory schooling – they start from birth. The early years from birth to compulsory school age are the most formative in children’s lives and set the foundations for children’s lifelong development and patterns for their lives. In this context, high quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) is an essential foundation for all children’s successful lifelong learning, social integration, personal development and later employability (as states the Report of the Working Groups on ECCE under the auspices of the European Commission, “Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care”, October 2014).
Many research studies show how ECEC services have positive impacts not only on children, but also on their parents and families, on women employability, well-being and quality of life. They become an aid for the life and work balance, and at the same time a place to share, debate and develop the parent dimension. In particular, given that public service providers are not sufficient, in numerical terms, private services (often with a different structure and type of organisation, such as tagesmutter or ‘micronidi’, ‘nidi condominiali’) are increasing in order to respond to the families’ demand, also in terms of flexibility and tailored services. Investing in quality of early childhood is thus a priority that guarantees the equal and quality level of services in both public and private ECEC providers. Latest EU projects and the related literature often tackle the topic of quality and quality assurance in ECEC, the need of awareness raising among providers and the large public, and, in the same time, they highlight the inequality across Europe among ECEC service providers.
Therefore, with this project, the partnership aims to respond to the need to improve the quality of ECEC services at providers’ level, through the development and the implementation of self and external evaluation tools as considered the most effective in terms of bottom up approach.
Aims and Objectives
– To provide European ECEC private and public services with adequate tools for self and external evaluation of quality, with the direct involvement of providers and relevant stakeholders as quality development partners;
– to define a set of adequate tools to be put into practice by ECEC service providers in different EU countries in order to assess quality delivery of service;
– to gather a set of indicators in order to assess quality in 5 areas (access, workforce, curriculum, evaluation/monitoring, governance/funding) also with a focus on digital competences;
– to develop a culture of quality at ECEC service providers level, mainly through a bottom-up approach which directly involves providers and relevant stakeholders in self and external evaluation.
Target groups
DIRECT
– Public & private ECEC providers, including educators, carers, (home) childminders & other staff
– Parents and families members with the role of child carers
– Children (especially those over three years of age)
– Experts, practitioners, researchers
– Policy makers (trade unions, local, regional, national public authorities)
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INDIRECT
– Universities students, interns, teachers, social workers
– Third sector operators and representatives
– General public and civil society
Expected results
– raised awareness of quality in the ECEC systems, better understanding of practices related to self and external evaluation and improved skills of educators and carers;
– improved Quality Culture and QA management within the organisations;
– innovative approaches for addressing ECEC providers target groups through use of self and external evaluation tools;
– a modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment especially within the ECEC providers with a special focus on the quality assessment;
– enriched training offer for members/learners from ECEC sector and parents;
– proactive and cooperative approach to evaluate the quality of ECEC services and to promote continuous improvement;
– 4000 indirect participants to be reached by activities of the project.