A reading sample from “Workforce Profiles in Early Childhood Education and Care. Trends and Challenges in 33 European Countries” by Pamela Oberhuemer and Inge Schreyer. Read a snippet from the first and the second chapter.
+++ The book is also available in German as “Personalprofile in Systemen der Frühpädagogik. Trends und Herausforderungen in 33 europäischen Ländern”+++
1 Conceptual framework – a ‘science of difference’
What do we mean by ‘comparing’ the ECEC workforce across the SEEPRO-3 countries? Persons with a lived experience of even just two different ECEC systems realise that a one-on-one comparison is impossible, too diverse are the underlying images of children and learning and assumptions about what constitutes a ‘good education’ during the years leading up to primary school. Our approach was guided by the involvement of one of the authors in the first two Starting Strong reviews of the OECD (2001, 2006), with their richly contextualised backgrounds.
The Portuguese comparative education scholar, Antonio Nóvoa (2018), distinguishes between a ‘science of difference’ and a ‘science of solution’. Diana Sousa and Peter Moss (2022: 402) draw on these two concepts to argue that “…respecting and valuing diversity discourages solutionist technocratic comparative education approaches.” This respect for diversity, this ‘science of difference’, fits best with our understanding and approach. SEEPRO-3 is not a solution-finding study, more a contextualisation of difference. Disregarding the context could lead to a ranking of countries, which is certainly not our intention. A ‘science of difference’ acknowledges the complexity of ECEC ecosystems (see also Kagan/Roth 2017). Whether and how the enactment of national policies takes place depends on a plethora of forms and diverse interrelationships and networks at the regional/local policy and praxis levels.
Within this conceptual framework, a specific focus on the staff working in ECEC settings, on professional profiles and staffing structures across countries, implies acknowledging that conceptualisations of the ECEC workforce, of the knowledge and skills required, of the support that staff need and the working conditions they experience, are situated and context-specific. They are located in ECEC systems with differing underpinning cultural beliefs and values. They are not only deeply rooted in country-specific histories of ECEC but also intricately linked to socio-political, philosophical and ethical policy stances.
An awareness of these differences is more likely to spark off a line of thinking which challenges one’s own images and taken-for-granted assumptions regarding the staff in ECEC and the systems they work in, potentially opening the way for future-oriented innovations.
2 Three ECEC system types: unitary, part-integrated, bi-sectoral
The kind of ECEC system that early childhood professionals find themselves in varies considerably across countries and inevitably influences the way that they view themselves as professionals and how they understand and interpret their professional role. The structure of these systems has been described as being on a continuum between ‘integrated’ and ‘split in terms of the consistency and coherence of ECEC policies (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2019a; 2019b: 14).
In the SEEPRO-3 study we have chosen three categories to describe the 33 ECEC systems: unitary, part-integrated, bi-sectoral. Five criteria are used to distinguish between them.
Table 1 gives an overview of the countries that we have classified as a unitary ECEC system, where there is ONE lead ministry, ONE legal framework, ONE curricular framework, ONE main setting type and ONE type of core professional.
Overall, ten of the 33 SEEPRO-3 countries fulfil the five criteria of a unitary ECEC system. Whereas the ECEC sectors in Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia and Ukraine fully meet all five criteria, it should be and Sweden have a separate curricular framework and in Finland a separate legal framework for this latter part of the ECEC system. In Finland, too, two types of ECEC professional are mentioned in the relevant legislation: a ‘Teacher in ECEC’ and a ‘Social Pedagogue in ECEC’. The former follows a three-year university study programme exclusively focused on ECEC. The latter has a university of applied sciences degree, of which only a relatively minor part is dedicated to ECEC, the remainder focusing on general social work. Both are classified as ISCED[1] 6 qualifications.
The situation becomes more complex in the part-integrated ECEC systems (see Table 2). Ten of the 33 countries can be described in this way.
Although all ECEC provision has been brought under the responsibility of one lead ministry in Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Serbia and Spain, several of the other four criteria are not met in the same way. In Serbia, where the system is almost fully integrated, the only indicator not fulfilled is that of having one type of core professional across age groups. In Italy, the decision to merge the two previous sectors for children below and above the age of 3 into an ‘integrated system’ was made in 2015 and came into force in 2017. In the meantime, educational guidelines have been issued for the entire ECEC phase but the previous curricular frameworks are still valid and the ECEC setting types remain distinctly different. An important move was made to upgrade the minimum qualification requirement for staff working in services for underthrees to Bachelor level, but this is not the same formal requirement as that for teachers working in the scuole dell’infanzia for the 3, 4 and 5 year-olds, which is an ISCED 7 qualification, equivalent to a Master’s degree. Another example is Luxembourg where, despite bringing both non-formal and formal ECEC together under the auspices of one lead ministry, the legal frameworks, curricula and core professionals in both remain distinctly different.
Also among the part-integrated ECEC systems are those in federally organised countries (Austria, Germany, Russia). In such cases, federal-level regulations co-exist with those at federal state level (Länder) or, in the case of Russia, with those at the level of the so-called ‘subjects’ of the Federation (provinces, republics, regions, autonomous republics, autonomous districts, cities of federal significance). In the UK, where responsibilities for ECEC are devolved from the central government in England to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each of the four nations has its own legal framework and curriculum and staffing regulations.
ECEC systems over the past ten years or so, they still account for more than a third (13) of the 33 SEEPRO-3 countries (see Table 3).
In Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary,Ireland, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Switzerland, responsibilities for ECEC are divided. France is indicative of a split system of earlyvchildhood education and care, with two separate sectors, three responsible ministriesvand staff qualification requirements which differ both in formal terms and in professional orientation. Belgium, as a federal state with three language communities – Flemish, French and German-speaking – has a unique position within this group of countries. Not only does each language community have its own ECEC system, each with its own top-level authority and separate regulations, but within each of the three communities ECEC is provided in two different sectors. Switzerland is also a special case in that there is no one national top-level authority, and both childcare and education come exclusively under cantonal responsibility
As to be expected within this system mix, there can be no singular definition of a core professional in terms of the tasks they are expected to fulfil and of their understanding of what it means to be an early childhood professional. A childcare worker in the predominantly privately-run settings in the French Community of Belgium, for example, with a minimum ISCED 3 qualification, is likely to have a very different professional self-image from a Master’s educated teacher who is firmly embedded within the school education system, as in Poland or Portugal.
[1] ISCED stands for International Standard Classification of Education – see Glossary for details.
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Workforce Profiles in Early Childhood Education and Care.
Trends and Challenges in 33 European Countries
by Pamela Oberhuemer and Inge Schreyer
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About “Workforce Profiles in Early Childhood Education and Care”
This book offers a systematic insight into the development of early childhood professionals in Europe. What are the requirements in terms of qualifications? What do career paths look like? What characterises the respective working contexts? What political initiatives are being taken? What challenges are there? These questions were analysed as part of a three-year research project in 33 countries. The book summarises the key findings and presents cross-national comparisons of selected aspects in the context of the differently structured systems of early childhood education and care.
