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How do early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies, systems and quality vary across OECD countries?

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Author: 
Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD)
Format: 
Report
Publication Date: 
2 Feb 2013
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Overview

Education indicators in focus:

How do early childhood education and care (ECEC) policies, systems and quality vary across OECD countries?

In many OECD countries, ECEC services have increased in response to a growing demand for better learning outcomes as well as growing female labour force participation. In recent years, however, the goals of ECEC policy have become more child-centred.

Fifteen-year-old students who attended early childhood education (ECE) tend to perform better on PISA than those who did not, even after accounting for their socio-economic backgrounds.

Improving access without giving due attention to the quality of ECEC services is not sufficient to secure good individual and social outcomes.

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