Current state of quality management in early childhood education and care (2025-2026)

The evaluation will take place between 2025 and 2026. The evaluation will provide information on the current state of quality management in municipal and private early childhood education and care. The data collection for the evaluation will be carried out using Valssi quality evaluation system. Both the evaluation of the current state of quality management in early childhood education and care and the use of Valssi to produce evaluation data are related to FINEEC’s statutory mission and the implementation of the strategic objectives set out in the Education Evaluation Plan. The evaluation supports the continuous improvement of quality in early childhood education and care and provides information for national and local development work.

The samples for the national evaluations have been drawn up in Autumn 2024. The municipalities in Mainland Finland have been allocated to participate in either the Autumn 2025 evaluation (Current state of quality management in early childhood education and care), the Autumn 2026 evaluation (Evaluation of the realisation of ECEC for children under the age of three), both evaluations or neither evaluation. In order to ensure a representative sample, either all public and private early childhood and edcation centres in the municipality, some centres, or none been selected for the evaluation on the basis of the size of the municipality. The contact persons for early childhood education and care in municipality and in private service provider chains, as well as the heads of private ecec centres, have been informed of the inclusion in the sample. Questions concerning the samples can be sent to: valssi@karvi.fi

Project plan (in Finnish): Link

The data collection will take place in October 2025. For more information on preparing for the national data collections, see the Valssi training materials: Link