Strengthening early childhood care and education through documented follow-up

In 2007, consideration of early childhood care and education must take account of the 2007 Education for All monitoring focus on early childhood and the responsibilities it places before education systems. A disciplined improvement process separates immediate containment from corrective action directed at the underlying cause.

For early childhood care and education, the applicable expectation should be capable of consistent application. A complete improvement record should define the baseline, affected scope, causal hypothesis, responsible owner, resources, milestones and measures of effectiveness. Operational definitions should be precise enough to support consistent consequential decisions and explain justified variation.

Defining the problem

This analysis is informed by 2007 Education for All monitoring focus on early childhood. Its relevance to early childhood care and education should be assessed against the affected jurisdiction, learner population and form of provision. Any consequential application should rest on evidence suited to the affected scope, not on the existence of an international development alone.

The 2007 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, Strong Foundations, focuses on the corrective action. It treats early childhood provision as extending beyond access to pre-primary places and considers health, nutrition, care, protection and learning together. The report’s framing requires quality analysis to examine who participates, the suitability of provision for young children, workforce capacity and unequal access.

Review of the intended improvement should be based on a stated method rather than general assurance. In work concerning early childhood care and education, effectiveness is the demonstrated change in the condition the action was intended to address. Completion of training, publication of guidance or installation of a system is an output and should not be reported as an outcome without further evidence.

A narrow control over the corrective action may create false assurance. In the present context, measurement that narrows developmental aims, access expanding without adequate quality and unsafe ratios or environments may produce acceptable aggregate reporting while individual learners remain exposed to material disadvantage. Within the scope under review, a sample confined to compliant cases cannot establish the reliability of the control.

Assurance of the relevant practice should draw on more than one form of evidence. Useful records include safe environment and safeguarding records, programme aims appropriate to child development, transition and referral arrangements, observation-based learning records, and staff competence and supervision. For early childhood care and education, a positive example may illustrate operation, but it cannot demonstrate coverage or consistency.

Improvement method

Authorities and providers reviewing early childhood care and education should proceed in a defined sequence. Review of the intended improvement should set a baseline and success measure before intervention, define the review period, compare the result with the intended outcome and examine adverse or unequal effects. Continue monitoring long enough to determine whether the improvement is sustained.

In the context of early childhood care and education, accountability and effective correction both depend on a record that can be followed from evidence to decision. For the corrective action, the responsible body should be able to identify the evidence considered, the judgement made, the person or body authorised to make it and the action that followed. A material amendment should record its reason and effective date, preserving the information basis of earlier decisions.

• Did the effect reach the intended group?
• When should an effect be visible?
• What was the baseline?
• Has the improvement been sustained?
• What condition should change?

Measures and review

Public reporting on early childhood care and education should distinguish established fact, analytical judgement and planned action.

A decision to close improvement work on early childhood care and education should be made by a person with authority and sufficient independence from implementation.

• Coordinate transitions and referrals.
• Identify barriers to participation.
• Review quality as access expands.
• Support play and responsive interaction.
• Engage families.

Residual risk and follow-up

Provision for young children should integrate learning, wellbeing, protection and development, with expectations appropriate to age and context. In work concerning early childhood care and education, review should cover the stages at which learners receive information, provision, assessment, support and remedy.

Interpretation of the corrective action should avoid two errors: treating a formal commitment as proof of effect, and treating one adverse case as proof that every part of the system has failed. Participation rates do not establish the quality of early learning, and narrow academic measures do not provide a complete account of development or wellbeing. When examining early childhood care and education, correcting an individual record does not establish that the process which produced the error has been corrected.

Any response to the present development should test the evidential connection between the intended improvement, its implementation and the outcome claimed. As regards early childhood care and education, institutional improvement and public confidence both depend on transparent responsibility and credible evidence.