Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care

ECEC systems aspire to provide high-quality early education and care for all children. However, varying levels of quality across the different types of ECEC available to young children – as well as between settings – is an inherent feature of any large-scale ECEC system. While some variation in the quality of ECEC provision may be inevitable, large variability is problematic from an equity and inclusion perspective, especially when some groups of children consistently experience lower levels of quality. Policies aiming to promote equity and inclusion through ECEC should be driven by the ambition to raise quality across the entire ECEC system, rather than by merely reducing its variability across settings.

This chapter addresses the following overarching questions:

• What policies can strengthen overall quality throughout an ECEC system while providing additional targeted supports to the children who need it most?

• How do major constraints faced by the ECEC sector across OECD countries – notably, fragmented governance, financial constraints and staff shortages – condition the policy space for supporting all children through high-quality ECEC?

This chapter addresses these questions by exploring how broad ECEC quality frameworks can consistently activate the levers of curriculum, staff training and professional development, standards for child-staff ratios and group sizes, and system-level monitoring. The focus is mainly placed on the structural aspects of quality (e.g. curriculum frameworks, staff training requirements, child-staff ratios), which are instrumental in setting the conditions for achieving process quality (i.e. meaningful interactions for children within ECEC settings) while being better reactive to policy change. Chapter 7 complements this perspective by focusing on setting-level practices with a more proximal influence on process quality. As a preliminary step, the chapter reviews research on variation in quality across different types of provision and its driving factors within ECEC systems.

ECEC systems can embrace multiple forms of provision (see Chapter 4). Universal ECEC systems with a largely integrated structure rely on a single or few types of provision, often with strong public subsidies and early entitlement as strategies to promote equity. Less integrated systems combine different types of ECEC provision that differ on dimensions such as whether centre- or home-based, managed by public or private providers (and among the latter, for-profit and not-for-profit); these systems are typically more marketised and rely more on targeted programmes to level opportunities. Different types of ECEC may also exist for children across age groups and reflect overseeing by different national or regional authorities.

Variation in quality can arise when different standards and regulations apply to different types of ECEC within countries, and when resources and funding vary across settings (see Chapter 9). Nonetheless, even within ECEC systems with largely uniform types of provision, variation in quality can exist between settings, for instance in relation to their location, to the composition of children in the setting or classroom, or to variability in how shared standards and frameworks are implemented in practice.

A large body of evidence documents variability in the quality of ECEC between and within types of ECEC. In England (United Kingdom), while 3- and 4-year-olds living in more income-deprived areas were more likely to attend settings employing better qualified staff, these settings (within both the public and private sectors) received lower quality ratings in inspections (Gambaro, Stewart and Waldfogel, 2015[1]). In Germany, migrant children and children from low-educated parents have been found to attend settings with moderately lower levels of quality on a set of structural (e.g. facilities and equipment) and orientation (e.g. staff satisfaction, frequency of staff meetings) quality indicators, as well as with higher concentrations of children with their same backgrounds (Stahl, Schober and Spiess, 2018[2]); (Becker and Schober, 2017[3]). In the context of Norway’s heavily subsidised and regulated universal system, children from highly-educated parents have been reported to attend ECEC centres with higher structural quality, with both factors in turn predicting higher quality relationships between staff and children (Alexandersen et al., 2021[4]). In the United States, a nationwide between-sector comparison documents systematically higher levels of quality, including regarding basic safety conditions, staff education levels, and both self-reported and observational measures of classroom practices, in formal programmes as compared to informal arrangements, with the pattern of between-sector differences being similar for settings serving toddlers and preschool-age children (Bassok et al., 2016[5]). At the state level, within Georgia’s universal pre-kindergarten programme, classrooms in low-income communities with a high share of minority groups have been found to receive lower process quality ratings but to have similar structural quality indicators than classrooms in more advantaged communities (Bassok and Galdo, 2015[6]). There is more limited evidence of differences in process quality between seven early education and care programme types in Massachusetts (Jones et al., 2020[7]). Large gaps in quality are also documented between providers within New York City’s universal pre-kindergarten programme in relation to neighbourhoods’ racial composition (Latham et al., 2021[8]); (Fuller and Leibovitz, 2022[9]). And within a particular programme (Head Start), substantial variation has been found in both structural and process quality between classrooms within centres (Sabol, Ross and Frost, 2019[10]).

Across countries, a systematic review of studies on the association between classroom composition and process quality indicates that process quality tends to be lower, especially in the emotional and instructional support domain, in ECEC classrooms with a high concentration of children from minority or immigrant backgrounds or a high concentration of children from socio-economically disadvantaged families (Aguiar and Aguiar, 2020[11]).

Another strand of research infers variability in quality based on differences in children’s outcomes. A meta-analysis of quasi-experimental evidence on the impact of universal programmes in eight countries finds that ECEC arrangements of high quality systematically yield more favourable outcomes than those of lower quality, particularly in cognitive domains and for disadvantaged children, with some indication that higher intensity (full-time) and public provision tend to generate more positive effects (van Huizen and Plantenga, 2018[12]). Evidence from France shows that attendance of centre-based and highly regulated settings (crèches) at age 1 is beneficial for children’s language skills, relative to less intense and less formal modes of care (Berger, Panico and Solaz, 2021[13]). Regarding emotional and behavioural outcomes, a meta-analysis of child cohort studies from five European countries (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom) finds that, relative to parental care only, attendance of centre-based ECEC between ages 0 and 4 is associated with lower levels of social and emotional difficulties in middle childhood and early adolescence, while informal childcare is associated with increased levels of difficulties, which suggests a positive impact for regulated structural quality characteristics in centre-based ECEC services (Barry et al., 2024[14]).

Robust cross-country comparisons of quality variability within ECEC systems are hindered by data limitations, but correlational analyses using the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) Starting Strong 2018 data suggest that many of the aspects that define quality in ECEC vary between ECEC centres with higher and lower shares of children from diverse backgrounds, in most of the countries that participated in the survey (OECD, 2023[15]). For instance, quality tends to positively associate with diversity regarding the presence of staff with special roles, staff training profiles, staff use of adaptive pedagogical practices with children, and the frequency of centres’ co-operation with support services. Across countries, these indicators point to generally higher quality in centres or groups with higher shares of diverse children. By contrast, other drivers of quality such as the adequacy of material resources and levels of family engagement tend to be lower in more diverse centres in many of these countries (OECD, 2023[15]). This analysis indicates possibilities for a targeted allocation of resources based on the composition of ECEC settings, which are compatible with systems maintaining a universal approach (limited differentiation) in service provision.

Overall, available indicators of structural and process quality show complex and often country-specific patterns of association with both the features of different types of ECEC and the composition of children in settings and classrooms. Much of this complexity stems from the multidimensional nature of both structural and process features of quality. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests benefits for children of attending formal and regulated types of ECEC with high standards when the alternative are more informal and less regulated arrangements. At the same time, process (rather than structural) quality emerges as the major determinant of outcomes, and large variation in process quality is documented even within integrated systems with little between-type differentiation and within well-structured targeted programmes.

While there is a scarcity of comparative studies on how quality variation within ECEC systems affects different groups of children, participation in regulated ECEC arrangements can be used as a proxy to explore whether a feature of provision that is generally associated with quality characterises the experiences of children from different socio-economic backgrounds to the same degree. As compared to more informal arrangements (e.g. unregulated childminders, babysitters), regulated types of ECEC (centre-based and home-based) generally have a licensing process and more often align with a regulatory framework established by the relevant authorities (e.g. curriculum framework), employ trained or accredited staff, and provide a greater intensity (e.g. hours per day), albeit in some countries not all registered ECEC services may meet all the criteria to be classified as educational programmes (International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) Level 0). Research shows that the regulatory requirements to which formal types of ECEC are subject represent necessary, albeit not sufficient conditions for consistent quality. Further, the beneficial effects of centre-based ECEC found by multiple studies, particularly relative to the counterfactual of family care, and particularly for disadvantaged children, typically apply to contexts where there exist stringent regulations concerning staff-child ratios, group sizes and staff qualifications (Duncan et al., 2023[16]).

An analysis of income-related gaps in high-intensity participation in regulated services where structural conditions tend to be more conducive to high-quality provision indicates that, in most European OECD countries, these experiences remain more common for young children from socio-economically advantaged families than for peers from less advantaged backgrounds (Figure 6.1). In 2023, in most of these countries, children from families in the top third of the national income distribution were more likely than children from families in the bottom third of the distribution to participate in regulated types of ECEC for 25 hours or more per week (or 5 hours per day on average), an intensity threshold that might provide more opportunities for implementing educational activities in ECEC settings (see Chapter 8). This difference between children from high- and low-income backgrounds was of 10 percentage points or larger in more than half of the countries with available data, but amounted to 20 percentage points or more in Croatia, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Sweden.

Variability in the quality of ECEC within systems is driven by multiple and interacting factors. The Starting Strong VI policy review identified the connections between different dimensions of quality in ECEC and the policies that, beyond setting minimum standards and requirements, can enhance the quality of the interactions that children experience in ECEC settings (OECD, 2021[17]). Drawing on information about 56 curriculum frameworks and staff training requirements in more than 120 types of ECEC settings across 26 countries and 41 jurisdictions, the review uncovered substantial variation in the approaches adopted in these two policy areas, while shedding light on some of the main challenges for ensuring consistently high-quality provision within ECEC systems.

On the one hand, almost one-quarter of countries and jurisdictions reported having multiple curriculum frameworks in place for the same or overlapping age groups across different services and settings. This situation can make it complex for staff to navigate guidelines and align pedagogical resources and for authorities to monitor implementation, and can potentially limit access to high-quality ECEC for some children, which contributes to uneven quality throughout the sector. Further, close to 40% of countries and jurisdictions reported not having a common framework for all children aged 0 to 5, and around 14% reported not having a curriculum framework covering settings serving children under age 3. Generally, the lack of a common set of frameworks can hinder curricular continuity for children from birth to entry into primary education, and make transitions within the sector more difficult. The review also revealed uneven attention to the different types of interactions that define process quality in ECEC when curriculum implementation is monitored (OECD, 2021[17]).

On the other hand, substantial variation emerged regarding the qualification and training requirements for different ECEC staff roles, both within and across countries and jurisdictions. This concerns qualifications for entering the profession, content areas and requirements of work-based learning in initial education, and requirements and supports for participation in ongoing training. Within systems, variation tends to map differences between the pre-primary sector (typically 3-5-year-olds) versus settings for children under age 3, with lower qualifications and requirements for staff in the latter group, as well as differences between teacher and assistant roles, which reflect a higher value placed on education than on care, also within the pre-primary sector. Such variation, as well as related gaps in working conditions, can also create barriers for ensuring a consistent level of quality throughout the sector (OECD, 2021[17]). Overall, the fragmentation of curriculum frameworks and workforce preparation strategies represents potential blind spots for consistent quality provision within ECEC systems. These can be amplified in less systematically regulated segments of the sector, as is sometimes the case for home-based settings, settings serving the youngest children, and settings under private management.

Especially compared to primary and secondary levels of education, private institutions play a prominent role in many countries’ ECEC systems (OECD, 2021[17]). On average across OECD countries, in 2022 about one-third (32%) of children enrolled in pre-primary education (ISCED 02) and half (50%) of those enrolled in settings for children under age 3 (ISCED 01) were attending private institutions (Figure 6.2). These averages mask important variation, partly due to how countries categorise different types of ECEC offerings. For instance, at the pre-primary level, in Australia, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Korea and New Zealand, more than 60% of the children attend privately managed centres, whereas in Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Switzerland, this is the case for less than 10% of the children (OECD, 2024[18]). Similarly large differences between countries are observed in enrolment in settings for younger children (OECD, 2024[18]).

The monitoring and governance of private settings can present challenges for ensuring equitable, affordable access to high-quality ECEC for all children, even when private institutions receive public funding. Among other considerations, quality monitoring and assurance in more fragmented and marketised systems (which tend to have both small independent providers and large chains), requires comprehensive arrangements, incentives that reward quality provision, and supports for improvement (see Chapter 9). Countries also need to set stringent requirements for providers who wish to benefit from major public funding schemes (OECD, 2022[19]). Concerns raised by the growth of the private for-profit sector include socially segregated provision, higher costs for families, less favourable working conditions for ECEC professionals, and lower incentives for quality than in public or not-for-profit provision (Lloyd, 2019[20]). Research on the expansion of free preschool with public funding for private provision in England (United Kingdom) in the early 2000s suggests strong crowding-out effects of privately paid formal care and lower quality, as proxied by staff qualifications, in the private than in public providers (Blanden et al., 2016[21]). Research on changes in quality ratings in the Australian ECEC sector in the 2010s found improvement towards meeting and exceeding standards more likely among not-for-profit rather than for-profit providers, and among large multi-site rather than small stand-alone providers (Harrison et al., 2023[22]), although gaps in meeting quality standards have narrowed more recently through proportionately more for-profit providers increasing their standards (ACECQA (2024[23])).

Overall, the hybrid nature of many ECEC systems and the complex ways in which providers adapt to local contexts warns about oversimplification regarding the links between the public versus private dichotomy and levels of quality and inclusion. Recent research in the Netherlands (van der Werf et al., 2021[24]); (Romijn, Slot and Leseman, 2023[25]) argues that settings’ organisational characteristics are more consequential for these outcomes than their type of management. These studies find that ECEC organisations characterised by strong connections with parents and communities, a clear social mission and investments in collaborative professional development outperform other types of organisations on both quality and inclusion, without excluding a commercial and for-profit orientation and without being linked to more favourable structural indicators.

This section discusses some policy directions to ensure quality of ECEC for all children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. It aligns with a multidimensional understanding of quality in ECEC and with the research-based tenet that realising the benefits of ECEC for children’s learning, development and well-being relies on ensuring high-quality provision (OECD, 2021[17]); (Rankin et al., 2024[26]). Core components of high-quality provision are the interactions that children have with other children, adults, their families and their environment – known as process quality. Conditions for supporting these processes are created by other aspects of quality, more distal to children’s experiences and more influenced by standards and regulations – known as structural quality (OECD, 2018[27]) (OECD, 2021[17]). In line with other OECD work in this area (OECD, 2023[28]), an equitable ECEC system is understood as one that supports all children to flourish in their learning, development and well-being by offering high levels of quality for all and addressing their needs, and by providing additional support for some children to compensate for the uneven distribution of resources and experiences by personal background.

Universal and targeted policies can be combined to achieve consistently high quality for all children and promote equity in ECEC systems. The combination of universal and targeted approaches is a recurrent theme in policy debates on the reduction of social inequalities, including in the early years. This has been formulated as “proportionate universalism” in the public health field (Marmot et al., 2010[29]) and as “targeted universalism” in relation to social justice more generally (powell, Menendian and Ake, 2019[30]) and to opportunity gaps among children (NASEM, 2023[31]). The approach involves actions that have a universal reach but are applied with a scale and intensity that is proportionate to the level of disadvantage experienced by different groups (Marmot et al., 2010[29]). It entails setting universal goals for all groups concerned while implementing processes and strategies targeted to the needs of different groups, so that each group can reach the universal goal. The diverse needs of different groups are assessed and targeted based on how those groups are situated within various societal contexts (e.g. socio-economic status, cultural background, location) (powell, Menendian and Ake, 2019[30]).

In ECEC policy, the strategic combination of universal and targeted policies guides, for instance, Ireland’s “First 5” whole-of-government strategy (2019-2028) to improve the critical years from birth to age five (Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, 2019[32]) and its companion “Equal Start” plan, which sets out a funding stream for ECEC (Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, 2024[33]). The approach has also been proposed to address early education gaps in the Dutch ECEC system (Leseman and Slot, 2020[34]).

Broad quality frameworks are necessary to increase quality for all children, with a universal approach (Figure 6.3). These frameworks combine multiple policy levers and primarily address structural aspects of quality, such as curriculum frameworks, child-staff ratios, or minimum staff qualifications. These policy targets are essential to create conditions to ensure quality: while not sufficient in themselves, they can enable and support good process quality. For example, in Australia, the ECEC sector is guided by the National Quality Framework (NQF), which provides a national approach to regulation, assessment and quality improvement for ECEC services. Alongside approved learning frameworks and quality assessment processes, a core component of the NQF is the National Quality Standard (NQS), which sets a national benchmark for ECEC settings in Australia by bringing together seven quality areas that are important to children’s outcomes. This holistic approach addresses multiple dimensions of quality to ensure a consistent quality floor across the sector and provide a lever for future improvement, while building on a shared understanding of quality to reflect culturally safe and responsive practices (ACECQA, (2024[35])).

Regulating as many ECEC settings as possible under such quality frameworks is of utmost importance to raise overall levels of quality as well as to reduce variability within the system. In many countries, this involves extending quality standards to settings for children under age 3, including home-based settings, and to all privately managed settings. When sizable segments of the ECEC sector are subject to variable and particularly to less stringent regulations, quality may suffer. The regulation of home-based provision is a relatively new topic. Another development which attracts growing attention is the expansion of private providers, sometimes in the form of multinational groups operating as an oligopoly. This creates challenges for governments in ensuring compliance with quality frameworks, and may also raise equity issues (see Chapter 9).

With the goal to promote equitable outcomes, quality frameworks can include targeted measures to provide additional support for children at a disadvantage (Figure 6.3). These can be enriched experiences or additional resources for children who, because they come from personal and family backgrounds where they have had less opportunities, can benefit from supports boosting the quality of their ECEC experiences. Implementing targeted measures involves identifying children with additional needs and providing them not just with equal access to ECEC services but also with proportionally resourced services, for instance, enhanced funding, more favourable child-staff ratios, or adapted pedagogies.

Increasing the coverage and effectiveness of quality regulations throughout the system, and hence the number of settings that provide high-quality ECEC services, is also a way to prevent the so-called Matthew effect, i.e. that risk that the benefits of ECEC end up being concentrated among socially advantaged children whose uptake of these services is faster or more intense (Pavolini and Van Lancker, 2018[36]); (Van Lancker, 2020[37]).

Designing and implementing an effective mix of universal and targeted policies is not without tensions. Potential trade-offs exist between quantity and quality, for instance, when the elevated cost of universal entitlements may compromise the amount of provision (e.g. less hours) or its quality (e.g. lower staff-child ratios). Another potential caveat of programmes with a universal design is their lack of flexibility to adapt to local needs. Similarly, a compromise between levels of aggregate spending and societal impact characterises targeted programmes, given their lower number of beneficiaries compared to universal measures (Leseman and Slot, 2020[34]).

This chapter focuses on aspects related to some of the levers of quality identified in the Starting Strong framework (OECD, 2021[17]), namely curriculum, workforce development, standards for staff-to-child ratios and group sizes, and system-level monitoring. Other chapters of the report cover aspects connected to funding and governance (see Chapter 9) and to family and community engagement (see Chapter 10). For ECEC policies to be effective in raising quality and promoting equity, it is essential to activate as many of these levers together as possible, rather than separately or without alignment.

Curriculum frameworks are a powerful driver of quality in ECEC. Curricula make explicit the overarching values and goals embedded in the system, such as children’s rights, expected learning and development outcomes, or the importance attributed to promoting children’s well-being and respecting their diversity. The articulation of curriculum and pedagogy clarifies notions of what constitutes stimulating experiences for children, and their translation into practice within ECEC settings is particularly important for enhancing process quality (Edwards, 2021[38]); (OECD, 2021[17]). In interaction with other factors, a research-based curriculum that describes developmentally appropriate goals for children and orients responsive and intentional interactions from staff can have a major influence not only in shaping high-quality experiences in ECEC settings but also in enabling a more equitable distribution of cognitive, social and emotional, and well-being outcomes among children (Melhuish et al., 2015[39]); (Phillips et al., 2017[40]).

Curricula can differ on multiple dimensions, including theoretical underpinnings, focal developmental areas, or expectations for staff and children. The Starting Strong VI review identified some of the main curriculum features that support process quality. These include i) being child-centred, i.e. informed by evidence on children’s learning and development and well-being principles, and setting directions to support those through play, enjoyment, active participation, experimentation and interaction; ii) aligning with developmental stages, i.e. ensuring that experiences are well-suited to children’s levels of development and build from concepts appropriate to those levels into more demanding and conceptually-rich learning; iii) supporting continuity and consistency, i.e. underscoring the place of ECEC as part of the continuum of education and supporting smooth transitions for children as they grow; iv) being comprehensive, i.e. keeping a holistic approach that includes both cognitive (e.g. early numeracy and literacy) and social and emotional development (e.g. self-confidence, creativity, curiosity); and v) recognising the importance of and supporting family engagement, i.e. encouraging connections and continuity between the home and ECEC environments (OECD, 2021[17]). A consensus report of the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine identifies similar criteria in relation to high-quality ECEC curricula, and additionally emphasises aspects more explicitly related to advancing equity, such as being culturally relevant, linguistically supportive and affirming, and supporting individualisation for children with special education needs (NASEM, 2024[41]).

Curriculum frameworks are also essential for alignment and co-ordination across stages of education. This is particularly important for transitions both within ECEC (from one ECEC setting to another, including formal to non-formal) and towards primary education. Achieving consistency and complementarities in curricula across these different stages contributes to extending the benefits of high-quality ECEC experiences beyond early childhood (Shuey et al., 2019[42]); (see Chapter 8).

Moreover, curricula give recognition and meaning to children’s rights in the ECEC system. In keeping with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, curriculum frameworks can emphasise their rights to be active protagonists of their learning, to play and to be positively recognised as citizens in their multiple identities, and can encourage conscious efforts to listen to children’s voices and ensuring their learning and well-being (UN OHCHR, 1989[43]).

A recurrent discussion among researchers investigating different curricular approaches for the early years is the comparison between so-called “whole-child” curricula (i.e. comprehensive and high-level frameworks that establish goals and principles for development and learning without addressing specific domains separately, and that articulate interactions over a longer time frame) and so-called “skill-specific” curricula (i.e. targeted to the development of particular skills or learning domains, and providing more structure for activities with a shorter time frame). A major concern with relatively unstructured curricula is that, in the absence of a consistent capacity for high-fidelity implementation of the proposed environment, substantial differences in quality may emerge across ECEC settings, resulting in limited effectiveness in improving children’s outcomes. In turn, concerns about more domain-oriented curricula relate to an excessive focus on school readiness and direct instruction, which may not appropriately support young children’s holistic development and well-being. The ongoing debate on the effectiveness of these approaches highlights findings indicating that skill-specific curricula are more positively linked to skills development, but also that their effects are often short-lived (Jenkins et al., 2018[44]); (Weiland et al., 2018[45]); (Rege et al., 2024[46]); see Chapter 8). The debate is plagued by methodological tensions (Nesbitt and Farran, 2021[47]), including divergent counterfactuals and a measurement bias that favours studies designed to assess more academic (and more easily measurable) outcomes that capture only some of the multiple and interrelated dimensions of children’s early learning, development and well-being.

An emerging perspective sees the opposition between the two curricular models as a misleading dichotomy and advocates for an integrative and more nuanced approach, which would build on effective and complementary principles for supporting the development of a range of early cognitive and social-emotional competencies (NASEM, 2024[41]). This perspective is related to the recognition of play-based learning, particularly through guided play activities (Weisberg, Hirsh‐Pasek and Golinkoff, 2013[48]); (Skene et al., 2022[49]), and to the benefits of giving ECEC teachers concrete goals to focus on during structured educational sequences, as these help build meaningful interactions with individual children and make academic content more engaging for young children, which is often not the case, particularly for disadvantaged children (Burchinal et al., 2022[50]). This integrative approach holds promise to support equity, as it adds flexibility in responding to a wider range of children’s needs, and because more explicit guidance on pedagogical practices with children can facilitate curriculum implementation, particularly in more challenging settings. However, this requires strengthening staff preparedness to implement this kind of curricular approach.

Overall, countries can strike a balance in their early years curricula to maintain a holistic approach to early development and well-being while supporting specific areas of learning and engagement with ECEC staff (OECD, 2021[17]). Policy and research examples of the integration of domain-specific intentional teaching into comprehensive ECEC curricula can provide insights in this direction (Box 6.1).

Research also increasingly emphasises the role that ECEC curriculum and pedagogy can play in helping children to develop their executive function and social and emotional skills, two sets of competencies which act as a foundation for learning and self-regulation, and which are positively associated with a range of later outcomes (NASEM, 2024[41]). Curricula can foster the development of these competencies by promoting supportive and consistent relationships between staff and children; recurrent and predictable routines that give children the opportunity to practice goal-directed behaviours and emotional regulation; and intentional instruction in targeted activities (Bailey et al., 2019[51]); (Barnes, Bailey and Jones, 2021[52]).

As a structural quality pillar, curriculum frameworks can strengthen quality and equity across an ECEC system, provided they emphasise high-quality features, as outlined above, and that their coverage extends to a broad range of settings and types of provision (Box 6.2). Looking forward, ECEC curriculum frameworks need to advance towards a more concrete recognition of goals and strategies related to outcomes that are more difficult to measure, including social and emotional skills (e.g. curiosity, creativity) as well as positive identity or sense of belonging (OECD, 2024[53]); (NASEM, 2024[41]).

With a more targeted approach, ECEC curricula can also promote quality and inclusion by providing additional supports to specific groups of children, and most notably by promoting culturally-responsive and linguistically-affirming pedagogies; by including special provisions for children with disabilities; and by promoting effective approaches to engaging families with diverse backgrounds, including those that belong to Indigenous communities or national minorities (see Chapter 7).

Developing a skilled ECEC workforce is paramount to ensuring high-quality ECEC for all children and to advancing equity and inclusion in the system. ECEC staff need strong preparation for setting up safe and stimulating environments for young children, for engaging with them in high-quality personal interactions, and for promoting continuity across ECEC and home environments through positive relationships with families. This requires a solid understanding of the principles that underlie children’s learning, development and well-being, as well as strategies to respond to a diverse range of children’s and families’ needs.

The great variety of features of initial educational and in-service training programmes for ECEC staff poses a challenge to identifying robust links with the quality of ECEC services and children’s outcomes, but a number of key factors associated with higher levels of quality emerge from the evidence base (Falenchuk et al., 2017[60]); (OECD, 2018[27]); (Manning et al., 2019[61]).

Research demonstrates the initial education of ECEC staff is an important determinant of process quality, and, as such, a key policy target. Among the elements most commonly regulated are minimum qualifications for staff working with children, which can vary depending on their specific and complementary roles within settings. In the OECD area, the most prevalent qualification required for teachers is a bachelor’s degree or equivalent (ISCED Level 6), although lower qualifications (e.g. ISCED Level 5) are accepted in some countries. Less variation exists in requirements for assistants, most often the completion of upper secondary education (ISCED Level 3). A meta-review provides evidence of positive correlations between the level of education of lead teachers and the quality of classroom learning environments, as reflected in multiple subdimensions, including language and reasoning or personal care routines (Manning et al., 2019[61]). These associations are one of the factors behind quality differentials across types of ECEC provision. For instance, a study looking at all the publicly-funded ECEC programmes in the state of Louisiana (United States) finds that differences in teachers’ average levels of education explain a substantial share of the variation in the quality of teacher interactions with both toddlers and preschool-aged children between more and less regulated programmes (Markowitz, Sadowski and Hamre, 2021[62]).

Overall, however, staff levels of educational attainment predict levels of process quality with just moderate consistency and strength, suggesting the need to look beyond qualification requirements and into more specific aspects of pre-service education and training (OECD, 2018[27]) (Manning et al., 2019[61]).

In this respect, three features related to the content and delivery of ECEC initial preparation programmes appear instrumental in promoting process quality (OECD, 2021[17]). First, receiving specialised ECEC training that specifically prepares professionals to work with young children is essential to provide staff with a multifaceted knowledge about child development and to guide them in reading children’s behaviours, emotions and thought processes, and responding accordingly. Second, ECEC staff benefit from receiving initial training with a broad thematic scope, including child development, pedagogy and diversity among other areas. Results from the 2018 TALIS Starting Strong survey show that the breadth of training content is positively associated with staff sense of self-efficacy and, when coupled with in-service training in the same areas, also with greater use of practices that adapt to children’s individual backgrounds, interests and needs (OECD, 2020[63]). These two features are also important in the initial preparation of ECEC centre leaders, for whom having completed a course specifically on early childhood is linked to spending more

time on pedagogical leadership tasks (OECD, 2020[63]). Finally, a practical, work-based component in pre-service training gives ECEC staff a first opportunity to combine theoretical and experiential learning and to reflect critically on their own assumptions and practice, which is important to develop a situated understanding of work with children and of strategies to engage in more sensitive interactions with them.

Widespread implementation of these features in initial preparation programmes for ECEC professionals would support high quality in ECEC systems. While present in the initial education and training programmes established in many OECD countries, the Starting Strong VI policy review also identified areas of limited application (OECD, 2021[17]). These include less frequent requirements for work-based learning components in the initial education of staff in assistant roles and of teachers working in settings for children aged 0 to 2. Another area of concern is the large variation in the breadth of content covered by initial education programmes across countries. Generally, assistants are required to cover less content areas in their training. For teachers, most systems require training in child development, play-based learning and other pedagogy principles, but curriculum implementation and continuity between ECEC and home environments are less common (OECD, 2021[17]).

Continuous professional development (CPD) is another fundamental pillar for supporting the ECEC workforce and achieving higher and more consistent levels of quality within ECEC systems, as well as in responding to the growing diversity of children participating in ECEC. A consensus emerges from the research literature that high-quality CPD is the most robust predictor of the quality of staff practices generally and of their interactions with children and families in particular. Among the features of high-quality CPD most often identified by researchers are active learning methods, centre-embedded delivery and personalised feedback on professional practices, such as through coaching or mentoring (Egert, Fukkink and Eckhardt, 2018[67]); (Brunsek et al., 2020[68]). The peer feedback and practical components represent enhanced opportunities for staff to learn to adapt their practices in real contexts and be better prepared to work with diverse groups of children. Further, CPD programmes targeting specific content areas (e.g. language and literacy, social and emotional functioning) tend to be associated with positive outcomes for children, which points to the benefits of close alignment between training contents and skill-specific developmental targets (Brunsek et al., 2020[68]).

Ensuring that CPD offerings are designed and implemented according to evidence-based effectiveness principles is complex. Moreover, a pre-emptive challenge is to provide all ECEC staff with opportunities to take part in CPD activities regularly and in adequate conditions. More than half of the staff surveyed across countries in TALIS Starting Strong 2018 reported that the lack of staff to compensate for their absence was a barrier to participating in professional development (OECD, 2019[69]). With tight budget constraints in addition to staff shortages, ECEC settings may not have the capacity to help their staff access in-service training opportunities. Moreover, on average across OECD countries, pre-primary staff spend more time in direct contact with children than teachers at other levels of education, leaving less time for professional development (OECD, 2020[63]).

Barriers to participation in CPD can also vary depending on the characteristics of ECEC settings. A targeted approach to workforce development can therefore involve additional supports to address these barriers for staff working in settings facing more resource shortages or serving larger shares of children experiencing vulnerabilities. Such supports can take the form of protected time for training and additional funding or human resources (OECD, 2021[17]). Supports should also be tailored to promoting participation in the types of professional development that have clear evidence of enhancing process quality.

Another stepping stone for efforts to foster equity and inclusion in ECEC is the provision of high-quality training specifically on responsiveness to diversity (see Chapter 7). In several countries, staff who cover training contents related to working with a diversity of children in both pre-service and in-service training (i.e. cumulatively) are more likely to use classroom-level practices adapted to suit different children’s interests, levels of development or cultural backgrounds (OECD, 2020[63]).

Recruiting, training and motivating a high-quality ECEC workforce represents one of the greatest current challenges for ECEC systems (European Commission, 2023[70]); (Nordic Council of Ministers of Education, 2024[71]). This relates to an insufficient supply of well-prepared new entrants to the profession and high turnover rates among current staff, as well as to a shortage of specific types of competencies. A high turnover of staff can be highly detrimental to process quality since children need to develop a stable relationship with adult figures, and given that staff teams need time and continuity to engage in effective collaboration and peer learning. Further, the lack of specialised competencies can hinder strategies to provide additional supports to some groups of children.

A range of strategies are being explored to address these challenges. For instance, in Canada, the federal government has worked multilaterally with provinces and territories to develop a new workforce recruitment, retention and recognition strategy for its ECEC system, as in 2023, the employment of early childhood educators and assistants was estimated as below pre-pandemic levels (2019) by nearly 15 000 fewer people (Government of Canada, 2024[72]). In Germany, many states have made progress in the recognition of foreign credentials, but have also relaxed licensing regulations and lowered requirements in pedagogical training. These measures need to be supported by strategies to ensure adequate staff teams’ compositions within settings, so as to reap the benefits of inter-professional co-operation, avoid the risk of de-professionalisation and, most importantly, maintain or increase levels of quality (Grgic and Friederich, 2023[73]). In many OECD countries, the root causes of staff shortages in the ECEC sector are connected to structural aspects such as poor working conditions and a lack of attractiveness of the profession, which need to be addressed with a consistent approach.

Standards on minimum staff-child ratios and maximum group sizes are two of the structural features most commonly regulated for improving quality in ECEC. Developmental science highlights the importance that responsive and individualised interactions with adults have for children, particularly in their earliest years (see Chapter 3). Smaller class sizes and more favourable staff-child ratios can enable staff to reduce the amount of time spent on classroom or playgroup management and focus more on the needs of individual children, thereby establishing richer relationships with them. This is expected to positively influence process quality and, thereby, children’s learning, development and well-being outcomes (OECD, 2018[27]); (OECD, 2021[17]).

Average staff-child ratios in ECEC have improved across many countries in recent years, reflecting both demographic trends and policies implemented with this goal. Between 2015 and 2019, the number of children per teaching staff at the pre-primary level dropped by 7% on average across OECD countries, due, in most cases, to the number of teachers growing at a faster rate than the number of children enrolled in pre-primary education. In Belgium, Czechia, France, Korea, Mexico, Norway and Portugal, the number of teachers increased despite a drop in the number of children enrolled at that level (OECD, 2021[74]). On average across OECD countries in 2022, the teaching staff-child ratio was 1:9 in settings for children under age 3 (ISCED 01) and 1:14 in pre-primary education (ISCED 02). However, ratios of 1:5 or lower in settings for the youngest children existed in Costa Rica, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Latvia and New Zealand, and ratios of 1:10 or lower at the pre-primary level were maintained in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Lithuania and New Zealand. At both levels, the number of children per contact staff (which also includes assistants and other auxiliary staff) is lower than that of children per teaching staff in most countries, and particularly in settings for children under age 3 with an average 1:5 ratio, reflecting the importance attributed to personal interactions for the youngest children (OECD, 2024[75]). This is broadly in line with research-backed recommended ratios of 1:3 for children below age 2, and ratios of 1:4 or 1:5 for two- and three-year-olds, respectively (Melhuish et al., 2015[39]).

Research has long explored how staff-child ratios and group sizes in ECEC relate to various indicators of process quality and to children’s outcomes, with only partially consistent patterns emerging from the literature (Bowne et al., 2017[76]); (Perlman et al., 2017[77]); (Dalgaard et al., 2022[78]). Regarding process quality, a large number of studies find that smaller ratios and group sizes are associated with better staff-child interactions, particularly in terms of the provision of emotional support to children, mainly in centre-based settings, and for children aged 3 to 5. However, a lack of significant relationships is also reported in several studies, particularly for overall group size (OECD, 2018[27]); (Dalgaard et al., 2022[78]). A meta-review of studies in the United States found that both staff-child ratios and group size bear non-linear relationships with children’s cognitive and achievement outcomes at the pre-primary level, and that improvements in these conditions predict significant and small positive effect only when translating into very low ratios and sizes (e.g. below 1:8 and below 16, respectively, in the case of pre-primary classrooms) (Bowne et al., 2017[76]).

The evidence therefore points to positive relationships between staff and children being more likely in ECEC settings where child-teacher ratios and group sizes are relatively small, albeit this applies mainly to classrooms for 3-to-5-year-olds and does not consider other aspects such as child well-being. Generally, though, it also suggests limited potential for investing uniquely in reducing these features as a strategy to improve early learning outcomes. Policies need to activate these standards within a broader quality framework and in interaction with other levers, such as improved staff training, to increase their effectiveness.

From a policy perspective, measures with a universal approach concern the adoption of consistent, system-wide standards for child-staff ratios and group sizes, as these regulations support process quality by enabling richer interactions between staff and children. However, variation in these standards can exist between different types of settings (e.g. centre- or home-based) and types of provision for different age groups (i.e. under age 3, or 3-5-year-olds), given the greater need of younger children for responsive interactions and emotional attachments with caring adults.

An important consideration when assessing the moderate effects of improvements in staff-child ratios and group sizes on the quality of interactions and thereby (but less consistently) on child outcomes, is that research in this area has looked, almost exclusively, at contexts where regulations are largely adequate. Therefore, findings of moderate or weak effects do not constitute a basis for relaxing existing standards, which further represent an important condition for children’s safety. The evidence is limited with regard to whether findings vary according to the composition of children within settings.

From a targeted angle, and with the explicit goal of promoting equity, policies may selectively improve staff-child ratios and group sizes to provide additional resources for specific settings, for instance those serving large shares of children from disadvantaged backgrounds or children with special education needs. More favourable ratios in these settings would facilitate greater attention to the needs of those children, as a compensatory mechanism. ECEC policies need also to consider the benefits and challenges of allocating staff with specific profiles (e.g. more experienced, with specific training, more diverse themselves) to settings enrolling a higher proportion of children experiencing vulnerabilities. This can also include the possibility of having specialised staff working across multiple settings (see Chapter 7).

However, since many ECEC systems face funding constraints in the context of tight budgetary conditions for governments, careful consideration is needed when exploring the financial implications and expected benefits of actions on this or other policy levers. Regulations on structural quality are directly related to the operational costs of ECEC systems; improving staff-child ratios and group size by making significant changes to existing standards would prove expensive in many countries. As an illustration, a reduction in average group size from 15 to 10 children in some settings would typically require a 50% increase in the number of staff and, thus, a proportionate increase in labour costs. Given the indication that expected benefits would be modest, the cost-effectiveness of this approach to improve process quality and children’s early learning outcomes needs to be considered (Bowne et al., 2017[76]). These measures can be quite expensive and also difficult to implement in the context of staff shortages.

Overall, policies on this lever can aim to maintain adequate conditions for process quality across the system and also include targeted reductions of ratios and group sizes in settings serving larger shares of vulnerable children, in both cases in combination with other levers (e.g. staff training), rather than try to lower ratios universally.

Within the context of broader quality frameworks, monitoring systems are another instrumental lever to be activated towards ensuring that all children participating in ECEC experience high levels of quality, and that additional quality enhancements are adequately targeted to aspects of provision or groups of children where they can have the largest positive impact on equity. Quality monitoring in ECEC serves multiple purposes, from meeting public accountability requirements to informing actions for improvement by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the sector and individual services. Monitoring systems can also provide information to help families make choices between a range of local ECEC services, a particularly relevant function in more marketised systems where private providers account for a large share of the places on offer (OECD, 2022[19]).

Monitoring strategies interact transversally with other policy levers (OECD, 2021[17]). Monitoring is essential to determine whether curriculum frameworks are implemented as intended and translate into the expected outcomes. The existence of multiple settings and curricula in many countries poses difficulties but also makes monitoring of curriculum implementation even more important to ensure high-quality services across settings and age groups. A weaker basis for monitoring process quality exists in settings that are not required to follow a particular curriculum. Monitoring and related quality support systems are also key to designing professional development opportunities that address areas of work relevant for a variety of for ECEC professional roles. Further, making monitoring results available and considering users’ views and experiences can contribute to family and community engagement in ECEC. Greater attention to these aspects, which drive process quality, is needed to extend the traditional focus of monitoring beyond structural quality factors such as staff qualifications, staff-child ratios and group sizes (OECD, 2015[79]).

For ECEC systems, the major challenge for activating monitoring policies in support of high quality with a universal approach lies in establishing a quality monitoring framework that applies consistently to all types of settings and that considers both structural and process dimensions of quality in ECEC services. More targeted monitoring policies can also be implemented to support equity and inclusion objectives, with a dual focus on collecting and acting upon a richer range of data and on engaging families in the quality monitoring process.

With a universal approach, three main considerations exist. First, the need to establish a shared understanding of quality standards across the sector to ensure clear expectations for all service providers. The risk in this area is the coexistence of a variety of potentially inconsistent frameworks for assessing aspects of quality or compliance with standards. This may result from multiple agencies being involved in quality assurance efforts, as when bodies with different responsibilities develop their own criteria independently and at different points in time. Guidance on quality monitoring criteria needs to be guided by a shared understanding of standards, develop synchronously and be reflected in a unified and coherent set of documents that is readily accessible and consistently deployed across the system. Moreover, these frameworks need to address both structural and process aspects of quality, and fit-for-purpose methods need to be used in monitoring practices, including direct observation for the assessment of process quality within settings (OECD, 2022[19]). Further, the monitoring system needs to maintain a focus on equity outcomes, including how variation in quality relates to the backgrounds of children in different programmes or settings, how subsidies are distributed among families, and whether the cost of some services is excluding some children from participation in ECEC.

The second consideration relates to aligning incentives to reward high quality and equity. This involves setting rewards for providers to aim at higher quality standards, including by recognising multiple levels of quality up to excellent/sector-leading practice, as well as implementing additional support measures for some groups of children. This also implies ensuring that consistent and timely sanctions follow when ECEC settings fall below basic requirements.

Two aspects of the incentive structure are of particular importance in ECEC systems with a strong reliance on market competition. On the one hand, public transparency to increase the efficiency of positive incentives, since knowledge that quality evaluations will be made public can generate pressure for providers to improve the quality of their services. On the other hand, stringent quality requirements for providers to qualify for public funding schemes or other fiscal incentives. These can include implementing national curriculum frameworks, meeting requirements for in-service training and working conditions, or accepting regular external evaluations (see Chapter 9 for more information on conditional funding) (OECD, 2022[19]). For instance, in response to the increasing privatization of ECEC services in several Nordic countries, monitoring tools for performance assessment, incentives and sanctions aligned with politically defined goals have been introduced in the last two decades (Trætteberg et al., 2023[80]).

The third consideration is to make effective tools for improvement an integral part of the quality monitoring system so that all providers, irrespective of their size or type of management, have good access to external guidance and ongoing, practical support in their improvement efforts. Among other measures, this involves providing varying levels of supports, from general development resources for settings that meet requirements but seek improvement, to more intensive and fast-paced supports to assist settings where substantial weaknesses are identified (OECD, 2022[19]).

From a more targeted angle, it is important that monitoring systems gain the capacity to collect and mobilise an extended range of data that can adequately support the design and evaluation of measures to improve equity and inclusion. This should build on more general data collection and data sharing practices, which are expected to provide a balanced and comprehensive coverage of key areas of the system across settings, including both structural and process quality (OECD, 2022[19]). However, targeted policies require not just good outcome indicators of quality at the system or setting levels but also detailed information on the composition of settings (e.g. children’s backgrounds and circumstances) and their levels of resources. For example, the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), a nationwide assessment of early childhood development conducted every three years, provides an opportunity for Australian ECEC authorities to make more informed decisions about the targeting of different programmes, especially tailored supports for vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, as well as to monitor objectives for reducing development gaps for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (Australian Government, 2024[81]).

The availability of a rich set of contextual and outcome indicators at the individual and setting levels makes it possible to use data for the monitoring of equity in ECEC, for instance analysing how the allocation of resources within the system responds to inequalities, or how developmental outcomes compare and evolve over time for children of different backgrounds, thus providing insights to better target supports to settings or groups of children who need it most (OECD, 2022[19]).

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