For the first round of the review, twelve countries volunteered to participate in the review: Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Early in the review process, these countries reached agreement concerning the framework, scope and process of the review, and identified the major policy issues for investigation. Between 1998 and 2000, OECD review teams conducted visits to the twelve participating countries. Information on the visits and several reports from the review can be viewed on the project web site: <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>. A comparative report entitled: Starting Strong: Early Childhood Education and Care, was released and published by the OECD in 2001.

At its meeting in November 2001, a second round of reviews was authorised by the Education Committee. Eight other countries have joined this round: Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, bringing the total of countries reviewed to twenty. Reviewing in this round began in November 2002, when an OECD team visited Ireland. In parallel to the reviews, a series of four thematic workshops on topics important for national policy-making are also being organised for the National Early Childhood Co-ordinators of participating countries. To date, 25 different countries have been involve in these workshops.

In order to examine thoroughly what children experience in the first years of life, the review has adopted a broad, holistic approach. It has studied policy, programmes and provision for children from birth to compulsory school age, including the transition period from ECEC to primary schooling. Consideration has been given to the roles of families, communities and other environmental influences on children’s early learning and development. In particular, the review has investigated concerns about quality, access and equity with an emphasis on policy development in the following areas: governance, regulations, staffing, programme content and implementation, family engagement and support, funding and financing.

The review process includes four main elements:

- Guided by a common framework, each participating country drafts a Background Report that provides an overview of the country context, major issues and concerns, distinctive ECEC policies and provision, innovative approaches and available evaluation data.

- A multinational team of reviewers with diverse policy and analytical backgrounds studies the Background Report and other relevant materials, prior to conducting an intensive case study visit of the country in question.

- Following the Review Visit, the review team prepares a Country Note, which draws upon information provided in the Background Report, the review team’s assessment and other relevant sources. The Country Note provides insights into current ECEC policy, the major challenges encountered; the means adopted to meet national goals and explores feasible policy options to ensure quality; access and equity.

- The final stage in the review process is the dissemination of the recommendations contained in the national Background Report and the OECD Country Note. These reports offer to participating countries the opportunity to call attention to early childhood policy issues and to make progress in key fields. With authorisation from country authorities, Background Reports and Country Notes are shared with all interested policy makers, researchers, programme developers and practitioners, and placed on the OECD web site.

As already mentioned, the Background Reports from each country and the OECD observations or Country Notes are the most important outputs of the review. To date, 20 Background Reports and 20 Country Notes have been finalised. They have been used in several countries as reference materials in parliamentary hearings, tertiary level training, research and media outlets. These reports can be freely accessed on the OECD web site:        <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>.

A number of other reports and documents can also be accessed on the OECD website, in particular,

Early childhood education and care poses a dilemma for curriculum designers. On the one hand, there is the need to guide the personnel in early childhood centres, especially when they have low certification and little training. A curriculum also helps to ensure that staff cover important learning areas, adopt a common pedagogical approach and reach for a certain level of quality across age groups and regions of a country. Finally, a curriculum can become the focus for further training… On the other hand, it is widely recognised that the aims of the ECEC curriculum must be broad, and contribute to the child’s overall development as well as to later success in school. These aims will include, for example, health and physical development; emotional well-being and social competence; positive approaches to learning; communication skills; cognition and general knowledge (NEGP, 1997). Moreover, because of the learning patterns of young children, social-emotional and cognitive progress will be at the child’s own pace, and take place through play and active methods, governed in so far as possible by the self direction of the child. These considerations suggest caution about designing a detailed cognitive curriculum, which staff should ‘deliver’ to compliant young children.

For these reasons, ministries in many European countries have chosen to issue guidelines about early childhood programming. From the evidence gathered in the OECD review, it seems that the positioning of ministries vis-à-vis curriculum is strongly rooted in the pedagogical traditions that they inherit inherited from the past. Countries in the social pedagogic tradition are more likely to focus on broad developmental goals in their curricula, and countries in the pre-school tradition are more likely to choose more focussed, school-like aims. A swing toward such a position is also taking place in the United States, despite the strong influence of developmentally appropriate practice in NAEYC documentation and research. (For a more complete development of this theme, see Bennett, J. (2004) Curriculum issues in national policy making, Paris, OECD // Malta, EECERA).

However; much common ground exists across the various curricula and frameworks, especially with regard to curricular principles and aspirations. In their official documents, countries encourage programmes to be active and play-based, while ensuring that a wide range of key learning experiences are covered. They call for the holistic development of the child, for example, for social and emotional as well as academic objectives, although Eurostat analyses show that the cognitive learning fields are generally developed in greater detail than other areas of development (Eurostat, 2000). [1]   Other aspirations include: the development of aesthetics and creativity; a positive relationship toward the environment; citizenship and preparation for life in a free society; laying the foundations of lifelong learning; readiness for school; etc. Again, partnership and working with parents is generally underlined by all countries, and most will also call for flexible curricula that can take into account the special needs of individual children, or the special needs of particular groups, such as socially disadvantaged and/or dual language children.

Within this consensus, two broad types of curricular emphasis may be discerned one merging into the other as part of the same continuum:

Broad developmental goals  Focussed cognitive goals

At one end of the continuum, the focus is on broad developmental goals, e.g. on the five dimensions identified by the United States National Education Goals Panel in 1997 (NEGP, 1997), as contributing to the child’s overall development and later success in school, viz. health and physical development; emotional well-being and social competence; positive approaches to learning; communication skills; and cognition and general knowledge. At the other end, the emphasis tends to be placed on more focussed skills and school-like learning areas, e.g. language development, numeracy and literacy skills. Where the focus falls seems to depend on the age of the child, the tradition of kindergarten in the country, the current curriculum emphasis and perhaps above all, on the programme standards in force, e.g. the child/staff ratios to be practised, the training level of the educators and the conditions in which they work; the materials and resources available… When ratios exceed 20 children per one adult in small classrooms, and a prescriptive curriculum is to be “delivered”, it can be difficult for educators to practise an inter-relational, play-based curriculum in which children can pursue their own agendas at their own pace.

The social pedagogy approach to curriculum is found in the Nordic and Central European countries. In the Nordic countries, ^[2] for example, a broad approach to curriculum is adopted, combining four elements, namely: a focus on a) principles and values; b) the pedagogical approach to be followed with young children; c) a definition of structural requirements or standards; and d) a short guideline on content and outputs, that is, on the knowledge, skills, dispositions and values that children at different ages can be expected to learn and master across broad developmental areas.  Information may also be given to parents in the same document – or alternatively in the municipal regulations - as to what their children may expect: the size of groups, child/staff ratios, staff qualifications. An emphasis is often placed on the quality of life in the institution, and on the child’s well-being and social development. It is assumed that the details of the curricular project will be worked out at local level, based on the general principles set out in the national framework.

The reluctance to fix detailed cognitive goals and content, as in a traditional curriculum, stems from new understandings of society, young children and their learning: In the gradual democratisation of societies, the rights and needs of social groups and local populations are increasingly recognised. In the Nordic countries in particular, the child is considered as a subject of rights and as a competent active learner, whose central task is to build her own meaning and self-identity at this age. The Convention on the Rights of the Child reinforces this viewpoint, encouraging adults to allow a high degree of initiative to young children. A new culture of participation and co-determination is now emerging in areas of life important for young children, including life in early childhood centres and the manner in which curriculum is generated and implemented. Governments increasingly recognise that the needs of young children and families differ widely from one context to another. Many countries, for example, include different ethnic groups and languages. Respect for diversity requires that minority groups should be supported to continue their own child-rearing and early education practices. At the same time, a common national framework can build bridges between ethnic and social groups by calling attention to shared values and by mobilising communities around common tasks and challenges. For these reasons, rather than formulating a ‘one-size-fits-all’ cognitive curriculum, ministries prefer to develop a general value-based framework, and allow local centres and communities to develop their own curricula, guided by the national framework and the needs of the local community.

The pedagogical project in Nordic centres is also based firmly in research on how young children learn. Programmes are play-based, with much movement, choice and child autonomy in evidence. Staff are trained to work in open framework contexts, and structural conditions support an active learning approach. The guiding national curriculum is flexible enough to allow staff to experiment with different pedagogical approaches, and adapt programmes to local conditions and demand, e.g. the widespread use of Reggio Emilia methods in Sweden.  Again, Nordic guidelines are formulated on a consultative basis, and receive the critical analysis and consent of the major stakeholders before becoming statutory (Lindberg and Välimaki, EECERA, Malta, 2004).

Countries in which readiness for school is an important aim, tend, on the other hand, to adopt a pre-school approach, that is, a conception of early education much influenced by the primary (elementary) school model. Early childhood education in these countries is often, in fact, located in the primary school, and in several countries comes under the jurisdiction of the primary school branch of administration. The focus is on teaching children what will be useful for them, and particularly on readiness for school. Curricula are formulated at central level, and the achievement or performance of children may be benchmarked and assessed, particularly as children approach the school entry age. In this way, continuity with the school is assured, and there are few apparent difficulties with transition.

In the traditional pre-primary countries in Europe (Belgium, France, Netherlands and the UK), with high rates of enrolment from two-and-a-half, three or four years, pre-school is often understood as the initial stage of organized instruction. As the programmes often take place in classrooms with high child/staff ratios, the dynamic of the programme may be predominantly teacher directed. Groups are created along age cohort lines, as in the school model. Formal quality control through inspection is customary, although in several countries the inspectorate may be relatively untrained in early childhood methodology.

These differences in the two traditions may be described in terms of generation, focus, prescription and assessment, although as mentioned at the beginning, one should think in terms of a continuum rather than assuming an abrupt division between the traditions:

Fig. 1. An overview of two curricular traditions in public ECEC systems

The results achieved in the social pedagogy tradition are also encouraging. Impressive equity in access and in the distribution of educational funding is achieved. The hoistic development of children is achieved and pleasure in learning experienced by young children. A negotiated or co-constructed curriculum encourages identity formation, positive attitudes, communication and negotiation skills in children, and may cater more effectively for the profile required in entrepreneurial cultures rather than the more passive, compliant behaviour found in children who must adhere to a previously defined curriculum (Bowles et al., 2000). Curricular research by Laevers and his team (2003) also indicates that learning achievement is high and relatively permanent in child-centred programmes that are conducted by well-trained professionals.

Does this mean that to teach socially valued knowledge should be excluded from contemporary curricula for young children? Of course not. It would be irresponsible not to teach and model for young children useful knowledge and skills, such as the basic rules of living together, personal health and nutrition, house and road safety, codes of interaction, and the understandings that underpin later proficiency in literacy, numeracy and knowledge application. Indeed, groups of children in all countries have need of additional skills and knowledge, e.g. children from bi-lingual families and from poor homes. These children have much to gain from the enriched environments of early childhood centres and from a focus on language, problem solving and appropriate literacy practice. Structured, half-day, early learning programmes enable children from at-risk backgrounds to make progress in cognition, language and socio-emotional maturity (Leseman, 2002, Sylva et al. 2003).

However, such programmes should be pedagogically sound and conducted by appropriately educated professionals. A high quality programme in early childhood implies child–initiative and involvement. If a programme is over-focussed on formal skills, it is likely to place certain young children in situations where they fail. This can lead in young children to a higher dependency on adults, and negative perceptions of their own competencies (Stipek et al. 1995) and at times, a fall in literacy ability in primary school (Sylva & Wiltshire, 1993).

An open framework approach to curriculum requires that staff are well-trained and well supported. To co-construct an organised and comprehensive curriculum with young children presupposes advanced knowledge of child psychology and strong pedagogical training. Research in several countries highlights the link between professional education and the achievement of high quality in programmes. The recent findings of the important longitudinal EPPE Project in the UK, confirms the positive correlations found by the NICHD and CQCO studies in the 1990s between the qualities and qualifications of staff and the achievement of centre quality (EPPE, DfES, 2004).

Other important conditions are that learning environments should be well-resourced and that child-staff ratios should be reasonable. Admittedly, the notion of a reasonable ratio differs across countries, but fewer numbers help children to generate peer communication and engage together in project and group work according to their affinities and interests (DfES, 2002). The presence of sufficient numbers of staff also ensures that each group can enjoy the support of a trained professional who will lead children toward the attitudes, skills and knowledge valued in a particular society. In Sweden, for example, national statutory requirements for child-staff ratios do not exist, but the average across the age group 1-6 years is 5.6 children per trained staff member. In the pre-school class for 6-7 year olds, the national average is one teacher + assistant for 13 children. These ratios are much below the ratios practised in the pre-schools of the education tradition, where classes for young children are often understaffed.

A sound curricular approach can contribute much to improving quality for young children. This is an aim of all governments but before the aim can be achieved, upstream structural issues need to be understood and resolved, in particular, adequate funding of buildings and materials and appropriate training of staff. Other challenges arise depending on the country. Where Mexico is concerned, important questions are: What are the priorities in ECEC investment? How can the country bring in new sources of investment into the field, in particular, to finance obligatory early education? How should ECEC cater for social and cultural diversity? Where is the voice of children? The OECD Country Note on Mexico, authored by Robert Myers and the expert team, takes up many of these issues.

Bowles, S., Gintis, H. and Osborne, M. (2000) “Incentive enhancing programs: schooling, behaviour and earnings” in American Economic Review, 91,2

DfES (2002) Research Report, RR320: Research on Ratios, Group Size, Staff Qualifications and Training in Early Years and Childcare Settings, London, Department for Education and Science.

Edwards, C., Gandini, L. and Forman G. eds. (1993), The hundred languages of childhood. Norwood NJ: Ablex

Laevers, F. (2003) Experiential Education: making care and education more effective through wellbeing and involvement, Leuven, Belgium.

OECD (2001), Starting Strong: Early Childhood Education and Care, Paris.

OECD (2002a), Improving access to ECEC for low-income and minority children, Paul P.M. Leseman, University of Amsterdam; OECD website: <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>.

OECD (2002b),Comparative indicator and data development John Bennett. OECD website: <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>.

OECD (2003), Financing ECEC Services in OECD Countries Gordon Cleveland and Michael Krashinsky, Economics Department, University of Toronto at Scarborough. OECD web site: <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>.

OECD (2004), Curricula and Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education , OECD website/ <http://www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandcare.htm>

Stipek et al. 1995 (1995) “Effects of Different Instructional Approaches on Young Children's Achievement and Motivation” in Child Development 66(1, Feb): 209-223. PS 523 050.

Sylva et al. 2003

Sylva, K. and Wiltshire, J. (1993), “The Impact of Early Learning on Children’s Later Developmenti” in  European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 1(1).