The past decade has seen declining numbers of 0-4 year-olds while the number of 5-14 year-olds has continued to rise. During this period, most countries increased their financial investment in primary and lower secondary education, improving student-teacher ratios. However, the distribution of teachers remains uneven, with urban areas often facing…

The expansion of early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs has generated increasing interest in establishing appropriate structural standards that can optimize child outcomes. To contribute to this discourse, this study aims to investigate the characteristics and influencing factors of classroom quality. Ninety-six classrooms (202…

This article presents autoethnographic short stories that describe an early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre director's work for one year in a municipality in Finland. The purpose of this article is to provide a glimpse into what it is like to enter into an ECEC director position and live everyday ECEC life with economic data that are…

Quality in early care and education (ECE) has been widely studied across several decades. There is not one standard definition of quality across ECE contexts. However, classroom quality often encompasses both structural features of quality, such as teacher-child ratios and teachers' qualifications, and process features of quality, such as…

This study examined several early childhood education and care (ECEC) factors and their relation to children's salivary cortisol slope and hair cortisol concentration (HCC). The study is part of the cross-sectional DAGIS study, conducted in 2015-2016, examining 66 preschools and 677 children aged 3-6 years in Finland. Two saliva samples from one…

Learning stories have been adopted as a form of assessment in early childhood education worldwide to assess children's learning processes, learning dispositions, and well-being. However, a paucity of research has been done which examines the applicability of learning stories in China. This case study investigated how learning stories are used by…

Children under five are expelled at high rates from early learning settings, yet little research discusses the relationship between program quality and expulsion. This study examined the relationship between program quality (accreditation, quality rating system participation, child:teacher ratios, suggesting programs are not a match, administrator…

In this systematic review, the authors will examine the impact of adult/child ratio and group size on child development and well-being in formal nonparental early childhood education and care settings. Thus, the intervention is defined as any change to adult/child ratio and/or group size which has been reliably measured within an eligible setting.…

The educational transition between early childhood education and primary education is a complex moment of change with repercussions throughout the academic life of the students. For this reason, it is important to seek continuity between both educational stages. A successful transition produces for the social, cognitive and emotional well-being of…

The Coaching Early Conversation Interaction and Language (CECIL) Project, which started in September 2020, has focused on exploring coaching-led approaches to support the effective implementation of early language interventions, especially in Private, Voluntary & Independent (PVI) settings. At the core of the CECIL approach is a way of…

This paper simulates the likely fiscal and employment effects of a vast public annual investment programme of free universal high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) services in the UK. It examines the extent to which it would pay for itself fiscally for different scenarios of pay increases. Investing in high-quality universal ECEC…

In Nunavut, data for 2012-2014 shows a high school graduation rate of 34%. Little has been published about the causes of secondary students' absenteeism and the methods for attracting students back to school. This study explored the barriers and supports to education success from the perspectives of school staff, students, and parents. Interviews…

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) has a crucial contribution to the future life of children, and overall quality of learning and development of a country. Even though there are no well-established international criteria to evaluate the quality of ECCE programmes because of the variability in nations' economies, workforces, political…

This paper focuses on the growing immigrant-born population of early childhood education and care (ECEC) workers in the Northern Territory of Australia, who represent a committed but poorly understood group within this workforce. The recent reforms to the ECEC workforce in Australia aim to achieve high-quality ECEC services by (a) growing this…

Research Findings: Community-based playgroups in low-and-middle-income countries increase access to early learning at lower cost than centers. However, evidence of effectiveness is limited. The effects of one, two, or three playgroup sessions per week on children's performance on the Early Learning Outcome Measure (ELOM) (n = 112; baseline M…