Improving the Quality of Early Childhood Education and Care

Between 2018 and 2025, the Ministry of Education has been implementing the Inclusive Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) project, financed through a World Bank loan, with the aim of enhancing the accessibility, quality, and equity of early childhood education and care, particularly for children from vulnerable social groups.

Through the ECEC project, the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with preschool institutions (PU), local self-government units (LSG), and other institutions and organizations, has successfully implemented numerous activities and initiatives aimed at supporting families with young children and building a quality preschool education and care system (PVO). This has been achieved by supporting and enhancing the competencies of approximately 22,000 practitioners in PU, as well as by constructing, extending, adapting, and equipping PU facilities, thereby expanding capacity by 11,000 new spots in the PVO system and creating better conditions and greater benefits for over 220,000 children in the PU system.

As part of improving ECEC quality, from 2019 to 2024, the following project activities were carried out:
• Support to all public PIs in implementing the Preschool Curriculum Framework (PCF), with 90 mentors and about 22,000 practitioners trained;
• A mentoring system was developed and delivered to 162 public PIs, alongside two peer-learning models;
• 12 horizontal exchange events for 380 professional associates on internal training and change leadership;
• 10 exchange events for about 300 teachers and educators from 128 primary schools and 16 preschools across 13 municipalities;
• Creation and distribution of practical handbooks and guides;
• Development of digital tools and training for over 12,000 educators;
• Inclusion training for 850 practitioners and compilation of inclusive best practice stories from six preschools;
• External evaluation instruments developed and piloted, with 9 months of mentoring support provided to all public PIs;
• Evaluation and reform of preschool educator training programs and accreditation standards aligned with professional competencies and the PCF.

Evaluation studies conducted on a representative sample showed measurable improvement across all four domains of preschool quality, confirming significant progress in alignment with the national education development strategy to 2030.