The knowledge gathered from the Nordic Region (presented in sections 4–8) indicates that ECEC professionals, such as preschool teachers and social educators, play a key role in assuring quality in ECEC. Many countries have worked intensively to raise the competence of ECEC staff, draw up a quality framework and agree on educational requirements for staff. Nevertheless, during a time of challenging public finances coupled with a more demanding and heterogeneous operational environment, many Nordic countries now face challenges in recruiting and retaining ECEC professionals.
Discussions are also being held about how to get families that tend to have a lower ECEC participation rate than the average (e.g. families with immigrant backgrounds and/or lower socioeconomic circumstances) to become more involved. Research has demonstrated the clear benefits of ECEC to language and socio-emotional skills development.
In addition to the benefits for children, participation in ECEC also has positive implications for the welfare and income of families and parents.
Based on the knowledge it has accrued, the working group has set out the following policy recommendations for ECEC in the Nordic Region:
Provide qualitative ECEC for all children by investing in ECEC professionals and institutions. Research indicates that the investment pays off in the long term.
Recruit more students into ECEC teacher training and other relevant professional training courses.
Improve working conditions to ensure higher retention rates among ECEC staff, including considering more favourable staff-child ratios and qualified leadership in ECEC institutions.
Enhance skills to cope with multilingual and multicultural environments in ECEC institutions
Provide specific support for ECEC institutions in vulnerable neighbourhoods to encourage inclusion and a sense of community and belonging.
Encourage groups with lower-than-average levels of participation to use ECEC services:
Actively convey the advantages of universal ECEC services, particularly for children and families in vulnerable situations.
Ensure affordability of ECEC services for families. This can be achieved in several ways, such as guarantees of a set number of free hours per week for all or lowering the maximum fee per child.
Actively convey the benefits of ECEC and an early start for children (at ages one to two) for the parents´ livelihood and careers. Critically evaluate systems of cash-for-care (public grant system for families taking care of young children outside of publicly subsidized day care after family leave) while enabling flexible systems encouraging work-family life balance for families with small children.
Broaden the knowledge base to measure the impact of Nordic ECEC and how it helps promote social equity.
Gathering large-scale data on ECEC can be challenging, as the knowledge base may be fragmented and/or specifically local. In order to facilitate broader longitudinal effect studies with high-quality quantitative data, more routine and ongoing data collection should be considered.
Continue working on a Nordic level to acquire in-depth knowledge of the factors affecting the prerequisites for qualitative ECEC on the one hand and participation and obstacles to it on the other.
Collect specific knowledge about how economic and social segregation affect children and ECEC institutions in the Nordic Region and develop collaboration in order to identify measures that can counteract any negative effects.
Where appropriate, consider conducting larger studies such as randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate and measure the impact of system adjustments to increase participation in ECEC (see Finnish RCT on the extension of free pre-primary education by two years)
Improve exchanges of best practices for addressing language skills and inclusiveness for all in Nordic ECEC.