Professor, Associate Head of Department of Education, Communication and Learning of University of Gothenburg (Gothenburg, Sweden)
Sonya Sheridan
2011, 3
p. 85-89
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376
The quality of preschool education concerns foremost the teaching process, the very interaction between a teacher and a child. From this position, the improvement of education’s quality is assistance to child’s teaching and development. Furthermore, there are certain conditions to changes in teaching quality, that depend on teachers’ awareness of factors affecting their own work – knowledge of the pertaining governmental policies, knowledge of children and their learning ways, self-awareness as a teacher. Can quality in preschool be enhanced through competence development simultaneously to organisational changes and financial cutbacks? The aim of this study was to develop a model of development of pedagogue competence to enhance quality in preschool. This model takes it’s point of departure in evaluations of quality, as evaluated by the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS), and evolved in interaction with the pedagogues throughout development work. The study is divided into three parts.
1. An external evaluation of quality of 20 preschool units using the ECERS.
2. A selection of an intervention group and a control group. The intervention group takes part in a competence development work, which starts and ends with self-evaluations of quality as evaluated by the ECERS.
3. An external evaluation of quality using the ECERS on the same preschool units.