Evaluating the quality of the child care in Finland

Abstract

In this study we examine parents' and teachers' perceptions of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) quality in Finland. The study is based on the paradigm of inclusionary quality and the assessment is based on the quality evaluation model. The parents and teachers assess the quality to be good. The strength of the quality was the effect factor assessed by the parents, and the intermediate factor assessed by the teachers. The curriculum content and pedagogy of learning were assessed with lower ratings by both groups. The assessments of the factors differed significantly between the respondent groups, except for the intermediate factor. The high standard deviation in quality variables indicates that there is variation in quality among ECEC organisations. The results show that there is a demand for creating a national quality evaluation system to guarantee equal child-care services everywhere in Finland.

Keywords:

• quality assessment
• evaluation
• child-care programmes
• inclusive quality