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.