The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development in cooperation with the Institute for the Education Quality and Evaluation (IEQE) and the European Policy Centre (EPC) has carried out the activities aimed at improving the external evaluation of PIs through supporting the implementation of the Preschools Quality Standards.

With such objective in mind, and through the ECEC Project support, the necessary resources for the implementation of the revised quality framework were developed: descriptions of the achievement of quality standards indicators at the levels 2 and 4 were prepared, as well as the supporting data gathering tools. The tools were successfully piloted and their metrical characteristics checked.

All the pedagogical advisors attended one-day conference on the application of the preschool quality evaluation tools.

Pedagogical advisors are of prime importance as a driving force in improving the services offered by PIs and supporting them in the quality implementation of the new curriculum. That was the very reason that 100 pedagogical advisors from school administrations attended the two-day training on the new Preschool Curriculum Framework (PCF) developed by the Institute for Pedagogy and Andragogy. Beside this training, next year pedagogical advisors will also attend training in initiating and leading the change. They will also have a chance to attend the training on the new PCF in PIs they are supporting and monitoring, in line with the planned training dynamics.

One of the objectives of the ECEC Project is the enhancement of the self-evaluation process.

In order to improve the self-evaluation methodology and practice as a basis for future planning, it was necessary to investigate the existing self-evaluation practice as well as the use of its results in the enhancement of practice and the development of competencies of employees in preschool institutions.

The sample consisted of 6 preschool institutions from Belgrade, from the central urban area, the outskirts and the suburban municipalities, of different size and numbers of facilities and groups. The evaluation was conducted between June and November 2019.

Different techniques were used for the evaluation purposes: focus groups with the employees in kindergartens, some of which were members of self-evaluation teams, interviews with PIs’ principles, reviews and analyses of documents of the PI that have to do with self-evaluation, reporting and planning.

The basic purpose of this activity was the assessment of self-evaluation practice in PIs and giving recommendations for the improvement of such practice. The following aspects were evaluated: understanding of the self-evaluation purpose; methodology of the self-evaluation process; improvement of the self-evaluation practice from the perspective of PIs; horizontal learning and reflective practice in PIs.

The Report on the Assessment of the Preschool Institutions’ Self-Evaluation Practice includes: the results of the assessment analysis, the recommendations for the improvement of self-evaluation practice, and the annexes: questions for the focus groups with the practitioners, questions with the interviews with PI principles, workshop for children themed ”The Kindergarten I want”.

The Report in Serbian is available here.