Investigating quality indicators of early childhood education programs in Kosovo, Ukraine and Finland

ABSTRACT

The existing literature on early childhood education (ECE) quality is predominantly from the US or other developed countries. In low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs), systematic research on ECE quality, however, is very limited. In the present study, we explore variation in structural and process indicators of ECE quality in two Eastern European LMICs, Kosovo and Ukraine, using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K (CLASS) as a measure of process quality for the first time in these countries. We also include Finland because governments in Kosovo and Ukraine show a particular interest in the Finnish education model to inform policy reforms. Participants were kindergarten teachers (n=177) from these three countries who were observed in their classrooms and asked to complete questionnaires. Results indicated variability in ECE quality at various levels, both within and across the three countries. Directions for future research and implications for practice and policy development in LMICs are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Structural quality
• process quality
• CLASS Pre-K
• kindergarten
• LMICs
• ECE quality
• structural characteristics
• teacher–child interactions

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all school principals and kindergarten teachers who supported or participated in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The TTI conceptual framework builds on research with the CLASS (for an overview, see Hamre et al. 2013).

2 An agreement was signed between the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Government of Ukraine 2018).

3 supported by funds from Finland

4 agreement within one scale point-deviation

5 We used Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to estimate the probability distributions.

Additional information

Funding

The data collection in Kosovo and Ukraine was supported by New York University Abu Dhabi Faculty Research Funds to Antje von Suchodoletz. The Finnish part of this work was supported by the Academy of Finland under grant number 292466 for 2015–2019; by the Ella ja Georg Ehrnroothin Säätiö and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation; and by the University of Jyväskylä, Department of Teacher Education.