Abstract

Chapter 3: Supporting quality early childhood education and care through workforce development and working conditions

Workforce training and working conditions matter for quality early childhood education and care (ECEC), across age groups and in both centre-based and family daycare settings. In turn, higher process quality is associated with higher levels of child development. This chapter provides an overview on associations between workforce-related characteristics and quality. Research shows relations between staff pre-service and in-service qualifications and training programmes, staff-child interactions and the promotion of young children’s development. Staff working conditions, such as staff salaries and well-being, as well as organisational climate, can play a key role in determining staff-child interactions. A few studies also find that in family daycare, staff networking is associated with higher-quality interactions. However, staff years of experience do not appear to predict quality levels. Staff-child interactions and implementation of developmental and educational activities are linked to higher levels of children’s emerging literacy and numeracy skills, as well as better behavioural and social skills.

From the report "Engaging young children: Lessons from research about quality in early childhood education and care"