One of the key novelties in our education system is the introduction of the New Preschool Curriculum Framework (NPCF), symbolically themed “Years of Ascent”. Since the implementation of the new concept presents a significant challenge but also a stimulus in the development of practice in kindergartens, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, in cooperation with the Institute for Pedagogy and Andragogy from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, commenced the full programme of support to preschool institutions in the implementation of the “Years of Ascent”, as part of the activities under the Component 2 of the ”Inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care” Project, financed from the IBRD loan. The programme of support includes trainings, mentorship, peer learning and horizontal exchange between the preschool institutions professionals.

For the purpose of implementing the programme of support, 90 professionals (practitioners: nursery and kindergarten teachers, preschool expert associates and faculty and vocational college professors) were hired in the open competition and trained for trainers and mentors. So far 1,890 professionals from eleven preschool institutions are in the support programme. Also, some additional mechanisms of the support programme monitoring and evaluation are envisaged, with the view to continually improving and adjusting to the practical needs.

By the end of 2022, all the preschool institutions will be included in the support programme and will start implementing the new PCF.

One of the key ”Inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care” Project objectives is to improve monitoring and evaluation of the preschool education quality in order to secure informed decision-making and enhance learning conditions and well-being of children.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, in close cooperation with the Institute for the Education Quality and Evaluation and the European Policy Centre, has initiated the activities that would contribute to the improvement of external evaluation through supporting the implementation of the revised Preschools Quality Work Standards.

In recent period, the Consultative Group has been formed (comprising twenty professionals – education advisors and preschool practitioners) and education quality evaluation experts hired, who jointly developed descriptors for different levels of achievement of quality standard indicators (at the levels 2 and 4), as well as corresponding tools for gathering data on the quality of work in preschool institutions. The developed tools were successfully piloted and their metric characteristics tested.

Another result of this fruitful cooperation was the development of methodology for monitoring the project development objective (PDO) in the area of preschool quality that would serve as a base for the preparation of baseline and endline studies dealing with project activities affecting prechool education quality (the studies will be available by the end of 2019 and in 2022 respectively). In the forthcoming month all education advisors from school directorates will receive a two-day training on new Prechool Curriculum Framework, and attend a one-day conference on the apllication of tools for evaluation of the quality of work in preschool institutions.