Starting strong III : a quality toolbox for early childhood education and care.

Annotation Early childhood education and care (ECEC) can bring a wide range of benefits - for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on "quality". Expanding access to services without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or long-term productivity benefits for society. This new publication focuses on quality issues: it aims to define quality and outlines five policy levers that can enhance it in ECEC. In addition, it provides busy policy makers with practical tools such as research briefs, international comparisons, country examples, self-reflection sheets, etc. in order to successfully implement these policy levers. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) can bring a wide range of benefits--for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on "quality". Expanding access to services without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or long-term productivity benefits for society. This new publication focuses on quality issues: it aims to define quality and outlines five policy levers that can enhance it in ECEC. In addition, it provides busy policy makers with practical tools such as research briefs, international comparisons, country examples, self-reflection sheets, etc. in order to successfully implement these policy levers. Read more... The first 'Starting strong' report was a review of early childhood education and care in twenty OECD countries, examining the social and economic factors that influence early childhood policy. It was followed by 'Starting strong II', which reviewed the progress made and new policy initiatives. This new report, 'Starting strong III', looks at improving quality in early childhood education and care. It features five policy levers for enhancing service quality: setting out quality goals and regulations; designing and implementing curriculum and standards; improving qualifications, training and working conditions; engaging families and communities; and advancing data collection, research and monitoring. The report describes each policy lever and their action areas, and describes how OECD countries are working towards these goals Foreword -- Executive Summary -- How to use the quality toolbox -- Setting out quality goals and regulations -- Designing and implementing curriculum and standards -- Improving qualifications, training and working conditions -- Engaging families and communities -- Advancing data collection, research and monitoring -- List of network member contributors.