Technical Report

Title: Improving the quality of ECEC services in Ukraine

Authors:
  • Innovations in the Early Years (VBJK)
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Abstract

ECEC is high on the policy agenda of Ukraine. In this perspective the Government of Ukraine took important initiatives to reform the preschool Education sector, this is reflected in the ‘Law on Pre-school Education’ (2016) and the ‘Fundamental Component of Pre-school Education’ the Standard for Preschool Education in Ukraine and the New Ukrainian School. UNICEF Ukraine is supporting this process through this study which is an international consultant’s system level analysis of ECEC in Ukraine using the European Quality Framework (EQF). This study is based on interviews and focus groups with policymakers, trainers, stakeholders, teachers and site visits. The results of the study focus on which actions must be taken to strengthen the competence system so that the education system can implement the changes the Law on Preschool Education requires.

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... (Nives Milinović, former director, Open Academy Step by Step, Croatia, and former board president, ISSA) Studies commissioned by UNICEF show that the gap between theory and practice and the lack of interdisciplinary collaboration between lecturers is still a problem in Montenegro, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia. But in Serbia and Georgia there have been some interesting reforms of the initial training programs Peeters 2018;Peeters 2021;Peeters and Miskeljin 2018). An analysis of proposals for a new bachelor program for preschool teachers in Georgia, for instance, indicates that there is a need for more internship (practice) and also for more clusters of courses in which several lecturers work together with coaches who are responsible for the supervision of the students during internship (Peeters 2021). ...
Book
This open access book is about the successes and challenges of the institutions and individuals who transformed early child education in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (CEE) and Eurasia in response to the political transitions to democracy in the 1990’s. Through new interviews and unpublished reports, the book gives voice to committed practitioners, researchers and policymakers who are developing inspiring services for and with young children and their families, including children who live in very difficult circumstances. They work with children affected by war, refugee families with young children, children who live in poverty, children of minorities, and children with disabilities and developmental delays. The voices of these pedagogues, experts and NGO leaders, who were supported by the Open Society Foundations Early Childhood Program, bring inspiring messages to those in the field of early childhood seeking to promote democratic values and social inclusion. The book traces the extension of programs to Africa and Asia and explores how strategies used to transform early childhood education following the political and social transformations in Europe and Eurasia can inform responsive reforms and innovations in early childhood education today and in the future. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Open Society Foundation (OSF).
... The quality of preschool education is a topical issue not only of modern reforms in the educational sphere of Ukraine, but also in the international context. The report "Improving the quality of preschool education and child care in Ukraine" by Jan Peeters, Doctor of Education, University of Ghent (Belgium), with the financial support of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), has considered 75.4% of children from 3 to 6 years (84.5% -in urban settlements and only 57.8% -in rural areas) attend preschool educational establishments (Peeters, 2019). This index is slightly higher than similar one in other countries for example as in neighboring Georgia (69.5%), but much lower than in the EU (95% of children from 4 to 6 years) (Kryterii yakosti doshkilnoi osvity [KYDO], 2019,8). ...
Article
Full-text available
The quality of education in general and preschool education in particular remains relevant both in the light of current reforms in the educational sphere of Ukraine and in the international context. Scientists pay attention to solving the problem of organizing comfortable environment, in particular the lack of internal space for each child. So far, the problems of teaching educators of preschooleducation establishments for the assessment of a high-quality sensory enriched environment have not been fully resolved. The purpose of the article is to determinate the effective quality scales of preschool education, to verify the most acceptable scales for assessment of the sensory enriched environment, to compare analysis of the obtained experimental data. During the research we used the following methods: observation, analysis, interviews, mathematical statistics, scales ECERS-R (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised) and SSTEW (Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being).The assessment of the condition of the sensory enriched environment was conducted by the 3rd year undergraduate students studying at the educational program «Preschool Education» at Vinnytsia Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University, Mukachevo State University, Khmelnytskyi Humanitarian-Pedagogical Academy. At the stage of experimental activity, 21 experts, 30 educators were involved, 15 environments in preschool establishments were evaluated.The analysis of the main features of the external and internal sensory enriched environment, which was carried out on the basis of the proposed parameters of the ECERS and SSTEW scales, allows us to determine the features that set out the possibility of further enrichment of this environment. The authors propose to focus on the enrichment of the environment as a special means of integrating the accumulated pedagogical experience into a holistic pedagogical system, as well as the complexity of the child’s development situation, which is taken into account by adults.
Chapter
Full-text available
In this article, the author deals with the question: what makes practitioners improve their pedagogical practice? First, we look at individual competencies that characterize excellent practitioners, who provide outstanding work with families and children even when the school is not supporting them. But these pedagogical heroes who fight against a traditional school system are vulnerable and one cannot ask each practitioner/teacher to show this kind of commitment and courage to challenge a system that is not open for change. Therefore, we need an approach towards continuous professional development on the institutional level that supports practitioners who are open to the improvement of their practice. The characteristics of a professional learning community that gives opportunities to actors of change to improve their practice continuously are described and illustrated by quotes and stories of practitioners and principals. The article then gives examples of successful CPD initiatives on the interagency level and the national and international levels that have led to a competent system. The author concludes that the closer the cooperation of research, training, policy, and practice within the competent system, the better the results of continuous professional development in the long term.
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