Accreditation (in ECEC settings): Refers to a process in which ECEC service providers, training providers or staff undergo an evaluation of their service, programme provision, or teaching/caring practices, by an external institution (such as an accrediting body) to confirm whether they meet a certain set of regulations or standards.
Assistants: Refers to ECEC staff whose role is to provide support to the teachers or lead staff member with a group of children. They usually have lower qualification requirements than teachers, ranging from no formal requirements to, for instance, vocational education and training.
Child-centred (beliefs, attitudes and practices): Refers to staff approaches and views which assume that learning is an active and co-operative process where children develop their own solutions to given problems.
Children’s development, learning and well-being: Refers to children’s academic and socio-emotional development, including children’s cognitive and non-cognitive development, which helps in the acquisition of skills, abilities, competencies, values and attitudes necessary for children to know themselves, build and maintain relationships with others, engage with life’s joys and complexities, and meet challenges in everyday life. Sometimes referred to as outcomes.
Common practices: Refers to any known practices or policies implemented in the last school year in the jurisdiction concerned (based on research, studies, evaluations, reports, data or other documents/reliable sources).
Curriculum/Curriculum framework: Curriculum frameworks are overarching documents setting out the principles, standards, guidelines and approaches that could be used by ECEC staff to foster children’s development, learning and well-being. Curriculum frameworks may be broad, aiming to achieve several goals, embracing varied pedagogical approaches, covering several age groups or addressing only a particular age group. The implementation of curriculum frameworks is tightly linked with pedagogy, which can denote the theoretical foundation of a curricular approach. Both curriculum and pedagogy are important drivers of process quality and need to be embedded in staff’s initial education and training and professional development.
ECEC: Refers to early childhood education and care. It includes all arrangements providing care and education for children under compulsory school age, regardless of setting, funding, opening hours or programme content (see also ECEC setting).
(ECEC) Centre leader: Refers to the person with the most responsibility for the administrative, managerial and/or pedagogical leadership at the ECEC centre. As part of the leadership role, centre leaders may be responsible for the monitoring of children, the supervision of other staff, contact with parents and guardians, and/or the planning, preparation and carrying out of the pedagogical work in the centre. Centre leaders may also spend part of their time working with the children. Sometimes referred to as Principal.
ECEC provider: Refers to the organisation that provides early childhood education and care services as its main objective. This can be a public institution as well as a private company, or a non-profit organisation.
ECEC quality: A multidimensional concept covering structural characteristics and process quality. Conceptualisations cover global aspects (such as warm climate), and domain-specific stimulation in learning areas such as literacy, emerging mathematics and science. (See Structural quality, Process quality).
ECEC setting: Refers to the place where early childhood education and care [ISCED Level 0] is delivered. Most settings typically fall into one of the following categories:
Home-based ECEC: licensed home-based ECEC. Home-based settings refers to early childhood education and care that is provided in a home setting rather than a centre. These settings may or may not have an educational function and be part of the regular ECEC system. The minimum requirements defined for home-based settings vary widely across countries. Registered home-based setting providers are accredited to take care of children in their own homes.
Regular centre-based ECEC: more formalised ECEC centres typically belong to one of these three sub-categories:
Age-integrated centre-based ECEC for children from birth or one-year-old, up to the beginning of primary school: can be called kindergarten, preschool, or pre-primary, and offer a holistic pedagogical provision of education and care (often full-day). To an increasing degree, these settings are linked to the educational system.
Centre-based ECEC for children aged 0-2: often called “crèches”, these settings may have an educational function, but are typically attached to the social or welfare sector and associated with an emphasis on care.
Centre-based ECEC for children aged 3+: often called kindergarten or preschool, these settings tend to be more formalised and linked to the education system. Many of them are part-time and provided in schools, but they can also be provided in designated ECEC centres.
ECEC staff: Refers to individuals whose professional activity involves the care and transmission of knowledge, attitudes and skills to children enrolled in an ECEC setting. This definition does not depend on the qualification held by the ECEC staff or on the delivery mechanism. ECEC staff may include teachers, educators, assistants or staff working with individual children, among other categories (see also Teacher and Assistant).
Governance: Refers to the systems and standards through which organisations control their educational activities and demonstrate accountability for continuous improvement of quality and performance.
Induction activities: Refers to activities designed to introduce new ECEC staff or teachers into the ECEC or teaching profession, and to support experienced staff or teachers who are new to a setting.
Inspection: Refers to the process of assessing (inspecting, investigating) the quality and/or performance of institutions, staff, services, and programmes by those (inspectors) who are not directly involved in the ECEC settings being monitored, and who are usually specially appointed to fulfil these responsibilities.
Integrated system: Refers to a system in which the responsibilities for ECEC services are under one (leading) authority (at the national and/or regional level), e.g. the education ministry, ministry of social welfare or another authority. Those responsibilities may stretch from curriculum development to standard-setting, monitoring or financing.
Interactions: Refers to all relationships that take place in the ECEC context and comprise ECEC process quality (see Process Quality). It includes inter-personal interactions and interactions with space, objects and materials.
Child-to-child (peer) interactions in ECEC: All interactions that take place among children in ECEC. Quality peer interactions allow children to experience feelings of belonging and confidence and to build friendships, and have a positive impact on children’s well-being and socio-emotional outcomes.
Child-to-staff interactions: Refers to all the proximal processes between children and staff, which include social, emotional, physical and instructional aspects, and contributes to the ECEC climate. Collaborative, responsive, stimulating and supportive interactions between staff and children contribute to creating a positive climate and welcoming atmosphere.
Child-to-space and materials interactions: Apart from interpersonal interactions, process quality also includes interactions with space, objects and symbols. The child’s experience is mediated through complex interactions with multiple agents, including people, space, objects and cultural tools. These relations have an important role in shaping children’s daily experience at the centre.
Child- to-parents interactions: Positive child-to-parents interactions (outside and inside the play- or classroom) include good communication, warm and emotionally supportive relations, acceptance and displays of love, such as praise and scaffolding. These interactions allow children’s attachment and bonding with parents.
Child-to-communities interactions: Relationships that children develop with people, neighbourhoods and institutions surrounding them. The experience of the child is enriched when the ECEC centre fosters and supports real-life interactions with the outside world (e.g. parks, museums, swimming pools, greeting in the neighbourhood). These experiences benefit children’s knowledge and social-emotional skills, giving opportunities for interaction with more and more diverse people.
ISCED: The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is the reference classification for organising education programmes and related qualifications by education levels and fields. The classification was revised in 2011, and is referred to as ISCED 2011 (see OECD/European Union/UNESCO-UIS, 2015, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264228368-en).
ISCED 0 (or early childhood education): Refers to early childhood programmes that have an intentional education component and aim to develop cognitive, physical and socio-emotional skills necessary for participation in school and society. Programmes at this level target children below the age of entry into ISCED level and are often differentiated by age.
ISCED 01 – Early childhood educational development: Provides educational content designed for younger children (in the age range of 0 to 2 years). The learning environment is visually stimulating and language rich, and fosters self-expression with an emphasis on language acquisition and the use of language for meaningful communication. There are opportunities for active play so that children can exercise their co-ordination and motor skills under supervision and in interaction with staff.
ISCED 02 – Pre-primary education: Designed for children from age 3 years to the start of primary education. Through interaction with peers and educators, children improve their use of language and their social skills, start to develop logical and reasoning skills, and talk through their thought processes. They are also introduced to alphabetical and mathematical concepts, understanding and use of language, and are encouraged to explore their surrounding world and environment. Supervised gross motor activities (i.e. physical exercise through games and other activities) and play-based activities can be used as learning opportunities to promote social interactions with peers and to develop skills, autonomy and school readiness.
ISCED 1 (or primary education): Designed to provide a sound basic education in reading, writing and mathematics and a basic understanding of some other subjects. Primary education usually begins between the ages of 5 and 7, and has a typical duration of six years.
Learning areas
Creative thinking (learning area): Development of children’s capacities and competencies to generate ideas and feelings, use imagination and convey thoughts and experiences in many forms of expression, including artistic skills (e.g. painting, drawing, handicrafts) and musical skills (e.g. singing, playing an instrument, recognising songs). It also refers to children’s capacity to observe and reflect, explore independently, and search for their own answers and solutions.
Language and literacy development (learning area): Development of children’s productive and receptive language skills at all levels: syntax (ability to form sentences), morphology (ability to form words), semantics (understanding the meaning of words/sentences), phonology (awareness of speech sounds), pragmatics (how language is used in different contexts), and vocabulary. Also refers to children’s (precursor) literacy skills, that is to say, all the skills related to reading and writing, such as recognising and writing letters and words, understanding pictures, etc.
Motor skills (learning area): Development of both fine and gross motor skills and awareness of one’s own body. Fine motor skills include small movements such as drawing and writing or putting on one’s shoes. Gross motor skills are large movements like walking and kicking, running and cycling.
Natural science (learning area): Development of children’s interest and abilities in understanding the various cycles in nature, as well as in the development of scientific knowledge; the ability to question scientific phenomena and to draw conclusions about scientific subjects. It also refer to the development of awareness of how science and technology shape and affect our material, intellectual and cultural environments and the ability to understand that we all are a part of nature’s cycles. These skills also allow an individual to make simple predictions, ask why, comprehend cause and effect, sort, and understand the common properties of living beings.
Numeracy (learning area): Development of children’s ability to reason and to apply simple numerical concepts and understand numbers. Basic numeracy skills consist of knowing and recognising space, shapes, location and direction, the basic properties of sets, quantity, order and number concepts, time and change, being able to count, to comprehend fundamental mathematics like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Physical education (learning area): Development of knowledge and awareness of their own body, as well as the development of the ability to perform complex muscle and nerve acts that produce movements, the ability to co-ordinate the body.
Levels of government
Central: Refers to the authorities responsible for ECEC at the highest level of governance in a country. Depending on the governance structure of the country, these authorities may or may not exert the key power of decision over ECEC policies and implementation. Also referred to as the national government.
Regional or sub-regional: Refers to decentralised level of governance. It is located at state or province level in the vast majority of countries, and may be referred to as communities, Länder, cantons, states, etc. Regional authorities in federal countries are often responsible for ECEC in their particular region.
Local: Refers to the government responsible for the local jurisdiction, located at city/town level in the vast majority of countries, e.g. municipality, district, commune, etc. In some countries, the municipalities take the main responsibility for ECEC settings and primary schools.
Practicum: Refers to the part of pre-service (initial) training where the learner applies the theoretical knowledge in practice.
Pedagogy: Pedagogy outlines the respective strategies and techniques implemented by ECEC staff to provide opportunities for young children’s development within a particular social and material context. It involves staff’s pedagogical knowledge, but also the way the knowledge is applied and the practices are implemented in interaction with children, and in response to children’s requests and interests. Pedagogy can also denote the theoretical foundation of a curricular approach. Thus, pedagogy is considered to both inspire and support curriculum, having a direct effect on children’s experiences and interactions in ECEC. Both curriculum and pedagogy are important drivers of process quality and need to be embedded in staff’s initial education and training and professional development.
Pedagogical leadership: Refers to the part of an ECEC centre leader’s role that focuses on oversight of pedagogical practice in the setting. This includes actions that a leader takes, or delegates to others, to facilitate or enhance the planning, preparation and carrying out of the pedagogical work in the centre.
Pedagogical approach: Refers to the interactive process between teacher and children and to the learning environment, including the set of strategies and techniques implemented to provide opportunities for children’s development in skills, attitudes and dispositions within a particular social and material context.
Constructivist/interactive (pedagogical approach): Refers to an approach that views learning as an active exchange between the child and environment that progresses in 'stages', with adults and peers providing important stimulus in learning. Based on the idea that learners construct new ideas/concepts based on their existing knowledge.
Developmentally appropriate practices (pedagogical approach): Refers to a balance of child-initiated learning and guidance from staff members. The approach provides a wide range of different activities, which are carried out in groups, or independently. The approach focuses on socio-emotional, physical and cognitive development. All practices are based on i) theories of child development; ii) individual needs; and iii) the child's cultural background.
Didactic/direct instruction (pedagogical approach): Refers to a classic method of learning with mainly teacher-initiated activities including repetition. This approach normally follows highly academic programmes, which put emphasis on literacy and numeracy skills.
Experiential education (pedagogical approach): Refers to an approach that focuses on the emotional well-being and the level of involvement of children. It emphasises satisfying children’s basic needs so that they feel at ease and self-confident, allowing them to act spontaneously and to be concentrated, interested and fascinated.
Outcome-based education/performance-based education (pedagogical approach): Refers to an approach that sets specific aims and strategies for teachers to achieve outcomes for children, e.g. literacy and numeracy skills, specific subject knowledge, IQ scores as well as child’s socio-emotional and soft skills such as motivation to learn, creativity, independence, self-confidence, general knowledge and initiative.
Readiness for school (pedagogical approach): Refers to an approach that puts emphasis on preparing children for primary school, e.g. by developing children’s early literacy and mathematics development. The pedagogy shows an alignment with primary schooling.
Social pedagogy (pedagogical approach): Refers to an approach that stresses content and quality of practice rather than assessing children’s achievement levels. It highlights the importance of dialogue between adults and children, as well as creative activities with discussions and reflections.
Play: Refers to a naturally spontaneous, creative, socio-cultural process where children engage and interact with others and the world around them. Playful learning or use of play for learning are considered different to play initiated and controlled by children as players (also sometimes referred to as free play), which is connected to a constructivist approach to ECEC.
Private setting: Refers to a setting administered/owned directly or indirectly by a non-governmental organisation or private person/organisation (church, trade union, business or other concern). Private settings may be publicly subsidised or not. Private non-publicly-subsidised settings receive no funding from the public authorities and are independent in their finances and governance. Private publicly-subsidised settings operate completely privately but receive some or all their funding from public authorities –if more than 50% of their core funding comes from government agencies, they can be considered government‑dependent private ECEC settings.
Process quality: Refers to the nature of the daily classroom and centre experiences of children in ECEC and concerns the more proximal processes of children’s experiences in their programme. Process quality includes all the proximal processes of children’s everyday experience: in addition to the interactions between children and ECEC staff, process quality concerns the interactions among children and the interactions of children with parents, the community and space and materials. While written curricula are considered a structural aspect, the actual activities provided in the ECEC centre are an aspect of process quality. The implementation of written curriculum is a central factor in the configuration of the child’s daily experience at the ECEC centre. Interactions between adults (staff-to-staff, parents and community) are also relevant factors influencing ECEC process quality, but they are not considered to be at the centre of the ECEC daily experience from the perspective of the child.
Public settings: Refers to an ECEC centre managed by a public education authority, government agency, or municipality.
Recognition of previous learning (RPL): Refers to an assessment process that allows obtaining or upgrading prior qualifications and/or experience in order to work as an ECEC teacher.
Self-assessment/evaluation: Refers to the process in which an ECEC setting reflects on their own performance regarding the accomplishment of certain goals or standards, or a process in which staff members reflect on their own skills and capabilities as a way to monitor progress, attain goals and foster improvement. Staff self-assessment practices can also be part of a larger monitoring procedure conducted by an external institution.
Staff-child ratio: Refers to the number of children per full-time member of staff. This can be a maximum (regulated) number, which indicates the maximum number of children that one full-time member of staff is allowed to be responsible for; or it can be an average: the average number of children a full-time staff member can be responsible for. Ratios can be either for main staff only (such as teachers or caregivers), commonly reported as teacher-child or teacher-student ratios, but can also include auxiliary staff, such as assistants.
Structural quality in ECEC: Refers to the distal factors that are typically regulated, such as children-to-staff ratio, group size and staff training/education, and create the framework for the experiences of children in ECEC. These characteristics are not only part of the ECEC location in which children participate, but also part of the environment that surrounds the ECEC setting, e.g. the community. Structural factors are an important precursor to the overall domain of process quality and to its subdomains. Also structural features generally have indirect effects on children’s development, learning and well-being (through its influence on process quality). Structural quality is partly determined by legislation, policy and funding and is a major factor in the macroeconomic costs of ECEC. See Process Quality.
Teacher and comparable practitioners: Refers to pre-primary and primary education teachers. They are the individuals with the most responsibility for a group of children at the class- or playroom-level. They may also be called pedagogues, educators, childcare practitioners or pedagogical staff in pre-primary education, while the term teacher is almost universally used at the primary level.
Staffs’ working time: Refers to the specified total number of hours per week, including contact and non-contact time, as stipulated by the regulations, to earn their full-time salary.
Contact time: Actual contact time is the annual average number of hours that full-time staff spend with children in activities that have an educational component, including overtime. It refers to net contact time as stated in regulations, excluding preparation time and periods of time formally allowed for breaks.
Non-contact time: Refers to the component of staff’s working time other than contact time directly working with children (e.g. preparation, professional development, and consultation with parents).
Transitions: Refers to a change process that children go through from one educational stage to another over time. This can include horizontal and vertical transitions. Horizontal transitions involve children’s transitions during their everyday lives between, for instance, a pre-primary education setting or primary school and an after-school centre. Vertical transitions refer to the transitions between different educational settings, such as between an ECEC setting and primary school. Transitions might also refer to children's transitions between the home-learning environment and the ECEC setting. Also relates to transition practices of staff that intentionally attempt to support children during their transition period across settings, and to training that seeks to prepare staff for their work on transitions (e.g. co-operation with parents, attitudes and reflection on transitions).
Working conditions: Refers to staff working hours, workload and wages, among others.
