Thematic and system evaluations

Thematic evaluations focus on educational level's current topics and themes. System evaluations may also study a whole education system or some part of it. The evaluation target may be education policy and its implementation or the renewal and development processes of the education system. Evaluations may target one educational level, or cover several educational levels.

A multidisciplinary planning and evaluation group will be formed for the evaluation project. The evaluation will use inclusive and varied methods. The key is to take into account the perspectives of various stakeholders, critical and profound study of the phenomenon to be evaluated and to get a com­prehensive understanding of the evaluation target.

Ongoing evaluations

• Evaluation of the implementation of anti-bullying activities and methods aiming to prevent bullying by children and supporting socio-emotional skills in early childhood education and care

The project evaluates methods aiming to prevent bullying by children and to support socio-emotional skills as part of the activities of child groups and early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres.

• Current state of quality management in early childhood education and care

The evaluation will provide information on the current state of quality management in municipal and private early childhood education and care. The evaluation supports the continuous improvement of quality in early childhood education and care and provides information for national and local development work. The data collection for the evaluation will be carried out using Valssi quality evaluation system. 

• Evaluation of the realisation of ECEC for children under the age of three

This evaluation will be conducted to examine how ECEC for children under the age of three is realised in Finland. The evaluation supports comprehensive development of ECEC by producing information on the current state of ECEC for the youngest children.

Finished evaluations

• Evaluation of education in the ECEC sector (2024)

The National Education Evaluation Centre conducted an evaluation in the early childhood education and care in 2022–2023. This evaluation was part of the National Plan for Education Evaluation for 2020–2023. The evaluation focused on training programmes in universities, universities of applied sciences (UAS) and vocational training.

Past evaluations

• Implementation of local ECEC curricula at day-care centres and in family day care (2023)
• Leadership in early childhood education: The current state, strengths and areas of development (2023)
• Children’s participation in planning and evaluating early childhood education and care – Summaries (2022)
• Summary: Evaluation of the experiment on free of charge early childhood education and care for five-year-olds in the period 2018–2021 (2021)
• An experiment on free of charge early childhood education and care for fiveyear-olds: The third phase of evaluation (2021)
• An experiment on free of charge early childhood education and care for five-year-olds: The second phase of evaluation (2020)
• The first phase of the evaluation of an experiment on free of charge early childhood education and care for five-year-olds (2019)
• Key figures of ECEC management – Statistical report (2021)
• Pedagogical continuums and joy of expression! Pedagogy for five-year-olds and the current state of skills and art education in early childhood education and care (2021)
• Every-day quality in early childhood education and care – ECEC curriculum implementation at day-care centres and in family day-care (2019)
• Implementation evaluation of the 2016 national core curriculum for early childhood education and care – Deployment and contents of early childhood education and care curricula (2018)

All publications related to early childhood education and care can be found the page Publications: Link