Guidelines and recommendations for evaluating the quality of early childhood education and care

The document ‘Guidelines and recommendations for evaluating the quality of early childhood education and care’ provides a theoretical and conceptual basis for quality evaluation at both the national and local level. It includes a model for quality evaluation and development, general principles outlining the evaluation of ECEC and an extensive review of research on the constituting elements of quality in ECEC. The document also presents indicators for the quality of ECEC in Finland. These indicators lay the foundation for what high-quality Finnish early childhood education and care activities should be like.

The purpose of the document is to support ECEC organisers and private-sector service providers in the systematic and goal-oriented implementation of self-evaluation related to quality management and to provide information on the evaluation of the structures and content of ECEC.

• Guidelines and recommendations for evaluating the quality of early childhood education and care: Link
• Quality indicators for early childhood education and care – summary: Link

The indicators are not an evaluation instrument as such. Instead, they provide a research-based foundation for what quality consists of at the national, local and pedagogic level. FINEEC has developed the ECEC quality evaluation system Valssi, with the help of which the achievement of the objectives set for ECEC and the quality of ECEC can be evaluated: Link