260


Sodobna pedagogika/Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies


Mojca Kovač Šebart
and Andreja Hočevar

Let./Vol. 69 (135)
Št./No. 4/2018
Str. 106–132/pp. 260–288
ISSN 0038 0474

Assessing and ensuring preschool quality
in Slovenia – a systemic analysis and
overview of the current state of affairs1
Abstract: The authors analyze the systemic solutions of assessing and ensuring preschool quality at the
process level and address the questions of whether and how quality policies at the global level influence the
considerations and solutions of preschool quality evaluation in Slovenia. The documents adopted by many
organizations at the global level focus increasingly on assessing quality in terms of its effectiveness, and
the effectiveness is related to society’s economic development and strength, as well as the “added value” to
which preschool education programs contribute. Emphasis is placed on the children’s fitness for school, and
the effectiveness of preschool education is measured in terms of the children’s school and life achievements
(employability, welfare). The authors of the article rely on the thesis that quality preschool education should
plan, conduct and evaluate the educational process in pursuit of the goal of educating a free, autonomous
and critical subject. Quality indicators at the process level define the key points that impact the quality of
preschool education and that are reflected in the child’s social and emotional responses, communication,
behavior, and the acquisition of new experience and knowledge. Therefore, they start by considering the
concept of the current Preschool Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999), because it is crucial in designing
and understanding the evaluation of educational work in preschools. They conclude that the Preschool
Curriculum (ibid.) is designed in a way that perceives the process of education as a goal in itself with a value
of its own, taking precedence over the results that children attending preschool should attain. They also
analyze the solutions that relate to the models of preschool quality assessment and assurance in Slovenia.
They demonstrate that despite two projects financed in the past to establish and successfully evaluate a
conceptually well thought out model of preschool self-evaluation, decision-makers have not been building on
their further development or implementation in preschools. Rather, they have focused on the development
of a new “common model” of quality evaluation for the entire educational vertical, which emphasizes learning and teaching children and their achievements. The authors write that still today we know little about
important aspects of preschool process quality. The latter requires preschool educators to evaluate critically
(and monitor) an educational process that foregrounds the child’s development and learning in interaction
with adults and preschool peers. This also means we know little about whether the educational process is
planned and conducted to work toward the goal of educating a free, autonomous and critical subject. The
decision-makers (i.e., financing policies) are simply not interested.
Keywords: process quality, curriculum, preschool quality (self-evaluation) in Slovenia, children’s achievements, preschool education, kindergarten
UDC: 373.2
Scientific article
Mojca Kovač Šebart, PhD, full professor, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational
Sciences, Aškerčeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija; e-mail: mojca.kovac-sebart@guest.arnes.si
Andreja Hočevar, PhD, assistant professor, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational Sciences, Aškerčeva cesta 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; e-mail: andreja.hocevar1@guest.arnes.si



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Introduction1
The quality of preschool education has been the subject of many expert debates
for at least two decades (see Lamb 1998; Vandell and Wolfe 2000; Janta 2016) and
resonates in the policies of many global organizations (for example, UNICEF 2012;
UNESCO 2014; UN 2015; International Monetary Fund 2015; World Bank 2015;
OECD 2015). The documents endorsed by these organizations (see ibid.) focus
increasingly on assessing quality in relation to efficiency associated with economic
development, economic power of society, and the “added value” the preschool
educational programs generate. At the forefront is children’s readiness for school,
while the effectiveness of preschool education systems is measured by the learning
outcomes of children2 in school and their achievements in life (employability, general
well-being as adults). Economists, for example Heckman (2008, 2012), write that
financial investment in preschool education can be very profitable.3 We will examine
more fully below our observation that the policy decision-makers of various countries
appear to be less interested in procedural quality, as it relates to development and
implementation of the educational process, primarily to ensure optimal conditions
for the child’s development and learning, as well as for the development of a free
and autonomous personality. Providing structural quality, which contributes significantly to process quality, is considered a burden and an unnecessary investment,
rather than a reflection of the concern for quality childcare4.
Applying the described perspective at the global level and also to Slovenia specifically is illustrated by the results of two studies (Bole et al. 2016; Bole and Rebec
1
This article is a product of a research program No. P5-0174(A) Pedagogical-andragogical research –
Learning and education for quality life in a community, co-funded by Slovenian Research Agency from the
central-government budget and the scientific and research collaboration between Montenegro and Slovenia
„Preschool education process quality in the Republic of Slovenia and Montenegro“, nr. BI-ME/18-12-002.
2
See footnoote 1 in the Editorial in this issue of Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies.
3
Canada, for example, has calculated that every euro invested in preschool education “brings”
$6 of savings to the state (with a conservative estimate of $4 of savings). In the US, however, it was
calculated that the dollar they bring into preschool education brings with savings of 16 dollars (CBC
2017, NCSL 2018).
4
See the introductory text of this issue of the Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies

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2017), which were proposed and financed by the Union of Education, Science, and
Culture (SVIZ), the largest trade union in the field of education in the Republic of
Slovenia. The trade union sought arguments against the constant reduction and
rationalization of resources in the education system. In the context of such debate,
we reckon that the union wanted to introduce “objective data” to the public and to
policy-makers, demonstrating that Slovenia’s education system is high quality and
efficient in light of the budget allocated to it and that further financial rationalizations will have negative consequences on its quality (see SVIZ 2017).
The results of both studies suggested that the Union had been caught in its own
trap. The effectiveness of preschool education in kindergartens was measured by the
results children attained on international knowledge assessments in later years, and
those results showed that the preschool education is not efficient enough, given the
financial investments in the system. The research conducted pointed out that the
availability of kindergarten increases the performance of immigrant children, and
especially of children whose parents had a lower education level, on international
knowledge assessments taken at the end of their elementary education (TIMSS5,
PIRLS6) by up to 36%, as compared to children who did not attend kindergarten
and whose parents had elementary education only. The effect of kindergarten on
performance for these children is significantly greater than the effect on the entire
population of children of the same generation who were included in kindergarten
programs; therefore, in this context, this subsystem of education was deemed ineffective (Bole et al. 2016, pp. 28-31).
By comparing the results of several groups of pupils7 who had been involved
in kindergarten for varying periods and who participated in the TIMSS 2015 study,
Velimir Bole and Peter Rebec (2017) concluded that in Slovenia, the influence of
including children in preschool was almost negligible on their success in tests of
knowledge in mathematics and natural science at the end of primary school. Three
years of a child’s attendance in kindergarten, compared to one year, increases the
pupil’s performance on international knowledge assessments by only about two
percent (ibid., p. 9). On the basis of these results, the authors concluded that in
Slovenia, “the relative ineffectiveness of preschool education of children” is notable
(ibid., p. 10), while the “expenditure per child is relatively high, compared to other
developed countries” (ibid., p. 7), because Slovenia is “way over the median of developed countries” (ibid.). Thus, policy-makers tend to understand this message
literally as “too much investment means low efficiency and quality,” judging from
the data and calculations from assessments of the subsequent learning outcomes
for children who attended kindergarten. It does not, however, consider whether
the expenditure per child for the structural and procedural quality of kinderTIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) is an international study of
trends in mathematics and science. It is carried out in four-year cycles, measuring knowledge of mathematics and natural science among pupils of the fourth and eighth grades of primary school through
the use of uniform knowledge tests (Pedagoški inštitut 2008).
6
PIRLS is an international reading literacy survey. It examines reading literacy of 9-10 year olds
(Pedagoški inštitut 2008a).
7
See footnote of the Journal of Contemporary Studies.
5

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garten is high or at least appropriate, as reflected in the quality of children’s lives
and in ensuring and implementing the conditions for the optimal development
of personality and education of children, factors which are not and cannot be
measured with only the results of knowledge assessments in the continuation of
schooling.
Below, we analyze the systemic solutions for assessing and ensuring the quality
of kindergartens in Slovenia at the procedural level, stemming from the thesis
that “the indicators at this level define the key points of preschool education that
influence the quality of work in kindergarten and are mirrored in children’s social
and emotional responses, communicating, behavior, acquiring new experiences,
and knowledge” (Marjanovič Umek et al. 2002, p. 41). Therefore, we consider that
the analysis must first reflect the concept of the established preschool curriculum
(Kurikulum za vrtce 1999, hereinafter referred to as the Curriculum), since it
is crucial for the conception and understanding of the evaluation of educational
work in kindergartens. We are also interested in how and whether quality policies
at the global level affect the solutions and reflections on evaluating the quality of
kindergartens in Slovenia.
Preschool curriculum and the model for assessing and ensuring the
quality of preschool education in Slovenia
Goal-oriented and process-development planning of a partially structured
curriculum
The current Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999) is based on the goal-oriented
and process-development strategy of curricular planning. The reason for such an
expert decision is based on the requirement to change from the formerly established
content-oriented strategy of curriculum planning and implementation of the
Educational Program for the Upbringing and Care of Preschool Children (Vzgojni
program … 1979, hereinafter referred to as the Educational Program) and the Educational Program for Preparing Children for Elementary School (Vzgojni program
… 1981). According to the Educational Program (ibid.), “the most important task
of kindergarten was preparing children for school” (Bela knjiga … 1995, p. 45).
Both of these programs defined precisely the contents of the educational process
for each year of a child’s age. With older children, “the dominant content was in
the field of cognitive development, while in the ‘preparing for school’ program,
the content related to the acquisition of academic skills.” (Bela knjiga … 2011, p.
84). Even more so than in the Educational Program (Vzgojni program … 1979),
“the schooling at the preschool level was evident in its practical use, which was
characterized by detailed timing and duration of all elements of the agenda, and
detailed content and methodical design of preschool activities [i.e., activities led
by the preschool teachers who provide children with content determined by the
Curriculum – author’s note]” (Bela knjiga … 1995, p. 45).

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The drafters of the new curriculum revealed the weaknesses of the scholarised
kindergartens, so they did not merely decide on a relatively simple transition from
the content-oriented to a goal-oriented strategy in planning the life and work in the
kindergarten, where the goals would be linear and hierarchically set in advance,
and where teachers would help children achieve these goals with “more operant
conditioning,” as Kroflič (2002, p. 177) puts it.
They assumed that not all learning objectives can be expressed simply in
the form of desired behavioral changes, and that there is no simple causal link
between the set goals and their implementation; the effects of pursuing goals are
often unpredictable, even undesirable, so teachers can feel split between intended
goals and the actual educational outcomes. The educational process also cannot
assume that the educational effects will follow the linear and hierarchical scheme,
but will instead follow them according to their set goals, writes the author (ibid.,
p. 179). In such planning, consideration of the role of the child in realizing the set
goals can easily be overlooked, and the relationship between teacher and child
can be instrumentalized to the extent that it becomes difficult to “establish a
transference relationship” (ibid.). A goal-oriented strategy of curriculum (similar
to the content-oriented one) therefore does not protect the kindergarten from
normativity or from blindly following externally set goals. The authors of the
curriculum document have thus acknowledged that teachers can “lose the
child” by applying such strategy, as they direct their activity predominantly to
learning outcomes, putting children’s cognitive development at the forefront.
The shortcomings of a goal-oriented strategy of curriculum planning could be
overcome through the use of the process developmental strategy (see Kelly 1989,
p 84-113), which guides preschool teachers to formulate educational objectives as
they go, in accordance with general principles as well as children’s interests
and needs. Such planning aims to achieve results throughout the process, not
just the consequent effect from realizing the precisely set and operationalized
objectives of the curriculum (ibid., p. 98). The combination of the two planning
strategies safeguards against the weaknesses in the process-development planning
strategy: key among them is that its content and incompleteness can very easily
become an area for justifying inconsistent, poorly thought out and badly planned
educational practices (Kroflič 2002, p. 205). This is also the main reason that Slovenia
decided not to implement the concept of the so-called open curriculum, as Iannacci
and Whitty (2009) write, according to which the teachers respond only to the child
and to his or her “corpus of knowledge” (ibid., p. 9), while the goals for life and work
of the kindergarten are fully formed as they go, based on “education as hearing
and responding to the voices of children in their everyday lives” (Cannella 2008,
p. 162). The teachers in such a model create the conditions for the child’s active
research and design of knowledge (Terhart 2001, p. 168), following the children’s
interests and needs, and adapting the educational process to them. The open curriculum develops in the process of negotiation between teachers and children, who
“establish common meanings” together (Rinaldi 1998, p. 113; see also Moss 2013).
The inventors of the Preschool Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999), however,
took into account that among the critiques of any pre-planned curriculum (e.g.,

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Malaguzzi 1998; Dahlberg and Moss 2005; File et al. 2012; Dahlberg et al. 2013),
one should not neglect the fact that in Slovenia we have a widely diverse public
network of kindergartens in which all children, regardless of the kindergarten
they attend, must have realistic equal opportunities for the optimal development
of personality and learning. The partially structured curriculum with general goals
and activities, and with tasks assigned to significant adults (see Siraj-Blatchford
2002) presents less risk for a systemically just and quality preschool education. It
is also more in line with the objective reality of educational practice. It precludes
the notion of unprofessional arbitrariness of teachers and of practices that have
the opposite effects from the desired. Since it is only partially structured, it gives
the teachers enough space and time for individual observation of children as to
their motivation, and for introducing such forms and methods in the management
of the educational process that promote understanding, criticality, responsibility,
active use of knowledge, eradication of prejudices, etc. (Kroflič 2001, pp. 15-16).
The convergence of the different ways of planning the Preschool Curriculum
(Kurikulum za vrtce 1999) and its partial structure provide further safeguards
against the shortcomings of both planning strategies, as well as against shortcomings inherent in complete openness and unstructured curriculum (see Kovač
Šebart 2012, p. 4; Hočevar et al. 2013, p. 481). Of course, the concept does not
answer questions of how and whether the solutions are properly implemented in
practice. We can only judge this on the basis of the results of research concerning
the procedural quality of kindergartens.
Structure of the curriculum for kindergarten
At the outset, the Preschool Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999) defines
goals on which its basic concept and principles for their realization are based.
This is followed by the introductory chapter on the development and learning of
children in the broader social and cultural context, following the theoretical bases
of various scientific disciplines. In the central part of the Curriculum, six areas of
activity are defined: movement, language, art, society, nature, and mathematics.8
For each area of activity, global objectives are defined, and generally formulated
objectives are derived therefrom, as well as examples of activities and the role of
adults (see ibid., pp. 18-75). Teachers should understand the principles and set goals,
but transform them independently into operational plans for concrete educational
activities (Kroflič 2001, p. 16). Their role in reality is not and cannot respond only
to the child’s needs and currently expressed interests, but must enable and promote activities in the area of proximal development, that is, the activities the child
would not undertake on his own, but is able—from the developmental-physiological
viewpoint—to follow or perform and excel in them with the help of an adult (see
Vigotsky 1977, p. 259; Marjanovič Umek 2010).
Some cross-sectoral activities (for example, health care, traffic education ...) intertwine through
all areas and form part of the way of life for children in kindergarten (ibid., p. 7-8).
8

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Conception of the curriculum therefore adheres to the idea that teachers in the
process of education will follow the general, pre-set goals to include children in the
planning of operational goals and activities. With the contents and methods through
which children achieve the set goals, their interests, wishes, and needs are taken
into account (see Kurikulum za vrtce 1999, p. 12 and p. 16). This assumes that the
principles of activity, development of closeness, individualization, experiencing, etc.
(Klafki 2000) are among the basic didactic principles which can sensibly be applied
in the field of preschool education, namely as they express the general guidelines
and conditions for a successfully methodical carrying out of the educational
process in terms of its aims, contents, and organization. That is to say, these
principles presuppose that children, their needs, benefits, and development,
are crucial to the professional considerations of how curriculum is planned
and followed (see Hočevar et al. 2013, p. 482).
What we have written so far is shown in the “principle of active learning in all
areas of a child’s development and learning,” which reminds the teachers that they
need to provide a stimulating environment for learning and development for the
children, to guide them in both a planned and an unplanned manner, and to follow
their self-conceived initiatives.9 Following this principle, the professional attention
of the teachers is also directed toward the development of the children’s sensitivity
to identifying problems and reflecting on them: they accustom the children to use
different strategies and tools to help them find solutions to different problems,
and encourage them to verbalize (use language for different functions) and to use
other means of expression, taking into account the child’s individual needs and
interests and their right to privacy. The teachers, therefore, indirectly promote the
child’s activity, support the child’s learning, and guide them—to observe, imitate,
examine (manipulate things and materials), construct, solve problems and comment on them—through the activities they are planning and through guided and
independent games. The children are encouraged to ask, listen to others, resolve
conflicts, and deal with others (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999, p. 16-19). The process
of education is understood “as a goal on its own, with a value of its own” (Kroflič
2002, p. 180), which takes precedence over the “results”.
Development of models for assessing and ensuring the quality of
kindergartens in Slovenia
One of the objectives of the Preschool Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999,
p. 10 and p. 16) points to the need to increase the critical evaluation of professionals
in planning life and work in kindergarten and the day-to-day interpersonal interactions in the department; to the need to create individual fields of activity, content
and methods of work, and everyday order in the department; to the need of providing
9
Preschool children cannot learn everything through the process of play, because besides child‘s
play, there are other types of activities that can be equally or more professionally important and justifiable than the play itself, depending on the goals pursued by the kindergarten teacher (Marjanovič
Umek and Lešnik Musek 2001, p. 150).

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the necessary conditions for the implementation of preschool education; to monitoring the development of the class and of an individual child, etc. Pursuant to this,
the ministry financed the developmental research project called Assessing and
Ensuring the Quality of Preschool Education (2000-2002, hereinafter the Quality
Project), in which experts developed the most comprehensive model of quality
assessment and assurance of kindergartens in Slovenia. At the procedural level,
there are four areas for quality assurance in kindergartens: curriculum planning,
curriculum implementation, routine activities, and children in the process of curriculum implementation. The model is based on self-evaluation but also enables
evaluation with external experts who can help in detecting and analyzing, finding
approaches for the self-assessing of teachers, and also in finding strategies for
resolving possible problems in kindergarten. External experts can only assume an
advisory and support role, but not supervisory. Concern for the quality of education
is transferred to the institutions and to the teachers in them (Gaber et al. 2011,
p. 39). The results of self-evaluation of quality and the plans for preservation and
assurance of quality can only be presented to the public by kindergartens if, at its
planning stage, all participants of the (self) evaluations in the institution agree to
it (Marjanovič Umek 2002, p. 67).
In the project, researchers also prepared evaluation tools for assessing the
processual quality of kindergartens. They created three questionnaires for parents,
for managers, and for teachers that “include all levels of quality” (Marjanovič Umek
2011, p. 81). The survey, for example, includes questions about the characteristics
of the department and about the satisfaction of teachers, about the planning and
implementation of the curriculum as it concerns the processual quality of the
kindergarten. They also prepared an evaluation scale concerning the processual
quality of the kindergarten: the first one enables teachers to assess both the desired
as well as the actual work in the kindergarten. It also provides an assessment of
the importance of a particular activity for a quality educational process and an
opinion on the frequency of the execution of this activity in the department, while
also reflecting the relation between the ideal and the actual work of teachers in
their department. Estimates and a comparison of the desirable versus the actual
performance of educators serve as a guide to their educational behavior concerning
the social and emotional development of children and the promotion of the child’s
thinking. With the second evaluation scale, the teachers assess their usual behavior in the department concerning the use of speech, movement and interactions
with children (e.g., declarations about their informal use of speech, on promoting
language comprehension and expressions of children, about responding to children,
on the implementation of activities that promote lesser and greater movements of
children, and about taking into account individual differences between children in
movement activities, etc.) (ibid., pp. 145-173).
In the framework of the research project entitled Self-evaluation of Preschool
Education in Kindergartens: Quality Assurance (2003-2005, hereinafter referred
to as the Self-evaluation Project), researchers in seventeen different kindergartens
from different geographical backgrounds tested the model of self-evaluation and

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evaluation tools prepared by the Quality Project (2000-2002).10 They also designed
and applied a scale of social interactions with children (the adaptation of the Arnett
scale (1989)), which includes four sub-scales; they refer to the positive interaction
of the educator with children—the manner and the quality of communication, as
well as the involvement in work with children—and the negative interaction of
educators with children and the control over them, their emotional and behavioral
restraint towards children, the social interaction of teachers with children, and
their behavior in disciplining children. In the project, researchers also prepared
evaluation scales for assessing the inclusion and well-being of an individual child:
they monitor, follow, and evaluate the child in various activities on the basis of
prepared criteria of the child’s well-being. Similarly, the involvement of a child in
activities related to the quality of his or her activity is also assessed (Marjanovič
Umek et al. 2005, pp. 123-129).
A brief presentation of the model considered for assessing and ensuring the
quality of kindergartens at the procedural level shows that it is based on a thorough
understanding of the concept prescribed in the Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce
1999). According to this model, the quality of kindergartens is assessed and ensured
at the structural, indirect, and procedural level, thereby enabling one to create a
comprehensive picture of the quality of the institution. The model declines to use
the results of self-evaluation to supervise teachers and kindergartens.
There is no political interest in systemically introducing a comprehensive
model of self-evaluation from the Quality Project (2000-2002) into kindergartens.
After assessment of the aforementioned model of self-evaluation in seventeen
kindergartens, activities in the field of quality assessment and assurance (according
to this model) died down due to the absence of systematic and financial support
(Gaber et al. 2011, p. 43). Additionally, the competent National Education Institute
of Slovenia did not systematically monitor quality assessment and assurance in
kindergartens (Marjanovič Umek 2011, p. 84), although in 2006, the then-director of
the Institute wrote a piece in the book Quality in Kindergartens and Schools (2006),
in which he said that the Institute’s advisors will offer interested kindergartens
“support at every step of the decision-making [of the self-evaluation – author’s
note], will advise them on research methods, and will play the role of critical friends
at their request, with the help of their development teams” (Zorman 2006, p. 30).
In the academic year of 2004-05,11 the National School for Leadership in
Education (before the funding of the Self-evaluation Project (2003-2005) ceased)
10
Each kindergarten has formed a project group that included teachers, counseling service, parents
of children enrolled in the kindergarten, representatives of the local community, researchers from the
Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, and the regional advisor for preschool education from
the National Education Institute Slovenia.
11
A year later, under the auspices of the Slovenian Institute of Quality and Metrology, a model for
determining and ensuring the quality of kindergartens called The Quality for the Future of Education
was created. We are merely mentioning it in the text, as it has not been financed by public funding
and was not systematically introduced and monitored by the competent institution. Kindergartens
implementing this model of quality assurance and assessment follow the requirements of the ISO 9001
quality management system standard (Zavrl et al 2006, p. 55). To date, 11 kindergartens have received
the certificate of quality.

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included kindergartens in the execution of the self-evaluation model of the Networks
of Learning Schools and Kindergartens (Erčulj in Trunk Širca 2000, hereinafter
the Network Model) which has been executed in schools since the 1998-99 academic
year. The model was based on a so-called approach of permanent school improvements and the approach of learning communities. It enables the monitoring of
improvements in individual segments of the educational process in kindergarten
as well as the training of teachers based on the experiences of others (collaborative
learning). The goals of the Network Model (ibid.) are, inter alia, to train teachers
to find solutions for problems that arise in their educational practice and to implement improvements, and self-evaluation of educational practices, when they detect
a problem (Šola za ravnatelje … n. d.).
Despite the financing of two projects that established and successfully evaluated the conceptually well thought out model of self-evaluation of kindergartens,
the decision-makers did not build on its further development and monitoring its
introduction in kindergartens—instead, all activities in connection with it have completely ceased, and the funds were directed toward the creation of a new “common
model” of quality evaluation (more on this below).
Evaluation studies of procedural quality of kindergartens in Slovenia
From 2000 to 2003, the Ministry financed three national evaluation studies to
assess the then-new Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999): The Views of Preschool
Teachers and Preschool Children Towards the Kindergarten Curriculum and their
Qualifications for Introducing Change (Stališča vzgojiteljic … 2002, by Breda
Kroflič), Daily Routine in Kindergarten and School (Dnevna rutina … report is
not available,12 by Eva Dolar Bahovec and Sergij Gabršček), Effects of Introducing
Curriculum for Kindergartens in the Field of Communication and Socio-emotional
Development of Children (Učinki uvajanja … 2003, by Ljubica Marjanovič Umek).
In the period from 2001 to 2006, the Ministry financed the targeted-research
project entitled Influence of the Kindergarten on the Child’s Development and its
Success in School (by Maja Zupančič, hereinafter referred to as the Influence of
the Kindergarten), which was executed in two separate segments.13 The research
project was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the call for tender
of the Targeted-research Program Competitiveness of Slovenia 2001-2006. One of
the topics in the tender was the study of “human resources and social cohesion;”
as part of this, the theme “School performance as a factor of social success—the
implementation of European development orientations” has been published,
with the aim of studying the “influence of psychological and sociological factors
on school performance” in educational institutions (Javna agencija ... 2004). It
12
The report is listed in the Cobiss database (2018), but „No library in the COBISS.SI database
has a copy of this material.“ (Ibid.) Some of the data obtained from the study can be found in the text
of Ksenija Bregar Golobič, published in the year of 2015.
13
Ljubica Marjanovič Umek was responsible for the first part of the project, and Maja Zupančič for
the second part of it.

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is clear from the tender that the financier was interested in the implementation
of European development policies and the impact of children’s involvement in
kindergarten on their development and learning, and their subsequent academic
achievement.
The researchers prepared a longitudinal study, comparable to the studies that
were carried out around the world in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the Nordic
countries (which have a preschool education system comparable to Slovenia’s). They
were interested in the importance of attending kindergarten in the early development of children, especially in relation to the factors of the family environment
from which the child originates.
In the first part of the research project, the study focused on the effect of
kindergarten on the children’s speech and cognitive, social, and personality development in relation to several factors of the quality of the kindergarten and the family
environment. They conducted several independent studies (e.g., on the effect of
the child’s age when entering the kindergarten and the effect of it towards various
aspects of the child’s speech development, on the effect of the kindergarten on the
child’s readiness for school) (Marjanovič Umek and Fekonja Peklaj 2008, pp. 131135). They were interested in the effect kindergarten has on readiness for school
in connection with the child’s intellectual abilities, vocational competence and the
education of his or her parents. In their contemplation, the researchers relied on
the findings of foreign research (Marjanovič Umek 2009, pp. 70-73), showing that
the developmental level of speech, cognitive and social development of a preschool
child at the time of their entry into school is significantly linked to the child’s
learning success in their further education. Potential deficits in the development
of the child upon entering school are rarely exceeded in later years of schooling.
Early experiences, talents, abilities, and skills that children acquired in kindergarten
before the start of formal education have, according to these findings, a significant
effect on their current and later development and on performance at school. The
children in the kindergarten14 were evaluated by researchers for four consecutive
years in various areas of development (social, personality, cognitive and speech).
In the fifth year, after the children had entered school, they also evaluated their
readiness for school.15 In the last (fifth) year, the research sample was expanded
with a group of students who did not attend kindergarten prior to entering school
(Marjanovič Umek 2014, p. 18).
The results of the first part of the study, concerning children’s speech development, showed that the effect of kindergarten or the age at which children attended
kindergarten is relatively small, but increases in relation to the education of the
child’s mother. Thus, kindergarten has a significant effect on the development of
children’s speech in cases where their mothers have a lower level of education,
14
A total of 274 three-year-old children were included in the entire study, of which approximately
half were included in the kindergarten at the age of one and the other half at the age of three (Marjanovič Umek 2014, p. 18).
15
They have prepared the Assessment of the Preparedness for School (Toličič and Skrget 1996; Toličič 1986), which includes visual tasks related to understanding of speech, reasoning, graphomotorical
skills, and perception of quantity.

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and on children who live in a family environment that is often less encouraging.
The results of the study point out that the effect of the mother’s education on a
child’s speech development increases with the child’s age. An important finding
of the study is that children who had parents with lower education levels but who
were included in the kindergarten for a longer period significantly improved in
the field of speech development in comparison with children who had parents
with a higher level of education (Marjanovič Umek and Fekonja Peklaj 2006,
p. 44). Children’s speaking competence was also significantly linked with the child’s
readiness for school and with his intellectual abilities, regardless of the level of
education of the parents and the child’s involvement in kindergarten. The age at
which children attended kindergarten, or the age at which children who have not
attended kindergarten were included in school, did not significantly link with any
of the assessed metrics of the child’s development (speech competence, intellectual
abilities, readiness to enter school). Children who were included in kindergarten at
various ages or who had not attended it at all achieved comparable results in this
study. In the group of children who did not attend kindergarten prior to entering
school, the education of their mother and father had a significant influence on the
child’s readiness for school. The differences between the results of children whose
parents had a high or low level of education were important. However, the education of the mother and father did not significantly affect the child’s readiness for
school compared to children who were enrolled in kindergarten five years before
entering school. The collected data show that kindergarten reduces, to some extent,
the effect of parents’ education on children’s readiness for school and provides
those whose parents have a lower level of education with a more qualitative and
simulative environment for development. In the group of children whose parents
had a high level of education, those who had not attended kindergarten prior to
entering school showed greater readiness for school. The effect of kindergarten
was therefore not a significant factor in readiness for school for children whose
parents had a high level of education. The education of parents along with the age at
which the children were included in kindergarten, or the age at which children who
had not attended kindergarten entered school, explains a noteworthy proportion,
namely a 10% variance in the child’s readiness for school. According to the results
of this research, children’s speech competence and intellectual abilities are better
predictors than the education of the child’s parents, which together accounted for
51% of the variance in children’s achievements on the School Preparedness Test
(Marjanovič Umek 2009, pp. 84-87).
In the second part of the study, researchers Maja Zupančič and Tina Kavčič
(2007) studied the social and personal development of children in kindergarten and
the correlation of their school performance in the first grade of primary school.
They measured the development of character traits of children attending kindergarten, their non-verbal cognitive abilities and social behavior, which are the early
predictors of the learning success of children at school. Teachers assessed the level
of the child’s achievement, however, by defined standards of knowledge in three
subjects; Slovene, mathematics, and nature study.

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The researchers compared the measured indicators of child development
and the level of achieved standards of knowledge between first-graders who were
included in kindergarten, and those who were not. They sought to determine the
extent to which the individual characteristics of children, family environment, and
kindergarten (including the age at which a child has entered it) contribute to the
studied psychological outcomes and to the achieved level of standards of children’s
knowledge in the first grade of primary school. Along with conscientiousness and
openness (which are character traits or features), the results showed that the general
non-verbal cognitive ability of children in the first year of schooling is the predictor
to which the extent of achieved standard of knowledge depends. According to the
results of the research, rather than the characteristics of family environment and
the age at which the child enters kindergarten (or if the child has entered it at all),
the so-called robust character traits16 and non-verbal cognitive abilities at the end
of the first grade play a more important role in achieving standards of knowledge.
Some of the characteristics of first graders played a significant predictive value in
achieving knowledge standards; among them, non-verbal cognitive ability (predicting
results in Slovene, mathematics, nature studies and in all three subjects together)
and conscientiousness or openness, which the teachers themselves assessed (predicting results in Slovene, nature studies, and in all three subjects together). The
set of children’s individual characteristics best predicted learning outcomes at
the end of the school year. Involvement in kindergarten prior to attending school
significantly improved the prediction of learning outcomes in school, except for
the results in mathematics. Based on the achieved standards of knowledge in the
three subjects at the end of the first grade, the learning outcomes of pupils who
were enrolled in kindergarten (N = 218) were significantly better than the learning
outcomes of pupils who did not attend kindergarten (N = 158) (ibid., pp. 149-232).
In the conclusion of the book, the authors state that early development of a child’s
consciousness and openness (statistically) makes an important contribution to social
adaptation and to the learning outcomes of children in the first grade of primary
school, and that this is a message that should be heard by kindergarten institutions.
Although they did not determine the extent to which kindergarten involvement
influenced the development of these character traits in preschool children,17 they
emphasized that perseverance, target orientation, organization in the planning and
implementation of various activities, diligence, accuracy, maintenance of targeted
attention, and curiosity are the character traits that are already relatively stable
in early childhood, and that their stability increases with age. Therefore, they advised preschool teachers as well as their parents to have a deliberate influence on
children’s development in this direction, because they anticipated that influences in
the kindergarten period are more effective than later, when children attend school.
16
The character traits of younger children were combined into fewer robust characters: extraversion - emotional instability, conscientiousness - openness, neuroticism and unacceptability - expressing
feelings of hostility.
17
The authors did not measure the various areas of development of children who were not included
in kindergarten prior to entering school; the parameters were measured only when these children were
already in the first grade of elementary school (ibid.).

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They also advised that children be systematically directed to conscientious behavior,
motivating them to learn about new things and to learn in different contexts at
home and in kindergarten (ibid., pp. 202-203).18
In the first part of the project called Influence of Kindergarten (2001-2006), the
procedural quality of kindergarten was evaluated among five-year-old children. The
second part of the project, however, did not evaluate the influence of the procedural
quality of kindergarten on the social and personal development of children and their
learning outcomes in the first grade of elementary school. We initially cautioned
about a problem that may also concern this study and was already mentioned in the
Self-evaluation Project (2003-2005). The researchers then noted that “the assessed
effect of kindergarten on children’s development and learning, regardless of the
age at which the child entered kindergarten, [...] can be strongly distorted if we do
not know the quality of the kindergarten at both the structural and the procedural
level” (Marjanovič Umek et al. 2005, p. 17). Only such an assessment of the quality
of kindergartens allows us to study possible differences in the development and
learning of children who are involved in kindergartens of varying quality and to
study the perception of critical points that need to be changed in the educational
process in order to increase the probability that all children develop optimally in
the area of proximal development (ibid., p. 87). Knowing and improving structural
and procedural quality can therefore increase the probability that all children will
develop optimally in kindergarten. Short and long-term effects on output quality
indicators, such as children’s vocational competence, readiness for school and learning
performance, would consequently be more significant. This warning should not be
ignored by decision-makers in the field of education in Slovenia.
In the text below we examine how and to what extent the warning was taken
into account by the decision-makers in planning and financing the policy, as well as
in the design of systemic solutions for assessing and ensuring the quality of kindergartens. We do not share the opinions of those who oppose any kind of evaluation
of the influence kindergarten has on the results of children’s learning (e.g., Moss
and Lloyd 2013; Moss 2014) or who are against any kind of evaluation of children’s
development in different fields (e.g. Campbell-Barr and Nygård 2014; Vallberg Roth
2014). We do, however, consider it completely inadmissible professionally—and extremely harmful in child-raising and childcare practice—for the learning outcomes
of children at school, including learning outcomes in kindergartens concerning
readiness for school, to be the most important and fundamental criterion for the
assessment of quality of preschool education (see the introductory text of this issue
of the Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies).
According to all evaluation studies financed by the ministry between 2001
and 2006, the longitudinal study Influence of Kindergarten (2001-2006) was the
first to discuss the effect kindergarten has on children’s performance at school: it
18
Adults are directed towards the systematic development of those abilities and characteristics of
children that are consistent with the abilities and characteristics of children to be measured by the
International Early Learning Study and Child Well-being Study – IELS) (OECD 2018) and the Study
on Social and Emotional Skills – SSES (OECD 2018a), which we write about in the introductory text
of this issue of the Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies.

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followed a tender for research projects, which addressed the impact of “psychological and sociological factors on school performance” in educational institutions
due to the development of “human resources” and “the realization of European
development orientations” (Javna Agencija ... 2014). It is therefore not surprising
that children’s readiness for school was examined in the first part of the study.
As the research has pointed out, in the context of the individual development of a
child in kindergarten—a process which is not educational—only a comprehensive
view of the procedural quality of the kindergarten enables examination of possible
differences in the development and learning of children who are involved in kindergartens of different qualities, as well as the perception of critical points that need
to be changed in the educational process in order to increase the probability that
all children in kindergarten will develop optimally in the area of proximal development. Consistent observation of the results of the study (at least of the first part)
leads to the requirement to design systemic solutions that highlight the reflection
of different levels of procedural quality, the development of the child’s personality,
abilities, knowledge, and experience, as well as the conceptual understanding of
the model of a valid curriculum document in the development, learning, and education of children.
Children’s learning outcomes as a measure of the efficiency and quality
of kindergartens in Slovenia
In accordance with the design of the quality model from the Quality Project
(2000-2002), which enabled kindergartens to decide when, in which areas, and on
which levels of quality they will self-evaluate and independently assess, assessment
was not legally regulated until 2009. Article 17 of the Amendment to the Organization and Financing of Education Act (Zakon o spremembah … 2008) stated
the responsibility of the headmaster for “quality assessment and assurance with
self-evaluation, and preparation of an annual report of the evaluation of school
or kindergarten” (ibid.). Among the competences of the board of the institution,
Article 16 stated that the board “accepts the annual report on self-evaluation of
school or kindergarten” (ibid.). Thus, the obligation of a kindergarten to carry out
self-evaluation of quality was enacted. The model of self-evaluation itself, according
to which kindergartens should evaluate the quality, was not prescribed by law.
New conceptualization of quality assessment and assurance of kindergartens
The adopted legal solutions were followed by financing the project Design and
Introduction of the System for Assessing and Assuring the Quality of Educational
Institutions (kindergartens and schools) (2008-2014, hereinafter the KVIZ Project).
It was executed by the National School for Leaders in Education and included
eighteen kindergartens (Končno poročilo ... 2014, p. 9). The project was financed
by European Structural and Investment Funds.

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While planning the project, the Human Resources Development Operational
Program served as a source (Operativni program … 2008). It underscored “improving the quality and efficiency of education and training” (Javni razpis ... 2008,
p. 1). The goal of the project was the “development and implementation of a quality
model of kindergartens and schools, and the definition of quality indicators at the
national level (external evaluation) and at the level of kindergartens and schools
(self-evaluation)” (ibid., p. 2). The self-evaluation model (and its design) created
during the project was presented in the Quality Assessment and Assurance: Theory
and Practice of Introducing Self-Evaluation in Schools and Kindergartens (Brejc
et al. 2011).
It leaves schools and kindergartens to define data and criteria on the basis of
which they will make improvements in the discipline that they plan to self-evaluate
(ibid., p. 23). It defines three areas of quality assessment: learning and teaching,
professional development of workers (preschool teachers) and headmasters, and
management of the kindergarten. Self-evaluation focuses on learning and teaching
or achievements of pupils in the broadest sense and “does not ‘affect’ all areas
and all activities of kindergarten or school, which are defined in the annual plan”
(ibid., pp. 18-19). They made such a decision because they believed that “quality
in education cannot be changed and improved, if it does not change at its foundation—in the work in the classroom itself” (ibid.). For us, it is important that the
field of learning and teaching children is also the central field of self-evaluation of
the kindergarten and that texts concerning the project specify both the terminological use of “prevailing school” terminology and the significant non-differentiation
of content between the role of kindergarten and the role of school (e.g. Brejc and
Koren 2011; Brejc and Poličnik 2012). Children in kindergarten are included in
the category of pupils taught by teachers who are working with them in classes.
They do not even mention the specifics of kindergartens in the cited texts when
they illustrate or explain the issues.
Unlike the well thought out model of self-evaluation from the Quality Project
(2000-2002), we encounter the “globalized discourse” that “lacks critical potential
for an analytical overview of the concept,” in the writings of the model in question (Barle Lakota 2011, p. 68). For kindergartens, this is clear at first glance: the
“learning and teaching” relation is mechanically transferred from primary school
to kindergartens as if they were not two fundamentally different institutions. If
we add to all this the focus on achievements, it becomes clear that the “common
model of quality” does not take into account the design of the Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999).
The KVIZ Project (2008-2014) introduced the Protocol for the Introduction of
Improvements and Self-evaluation in Schools and Kindergartens (Brejc et al. 2014,
hereinafter referred to as the Protocol), which is important for kindergartens as
well. The text is structured by the stages of introducing and implementing improvements in the self-evaluation process. These stages are: planning of improvements,
implementation and monitoring, and evaluation and reporting of improvements.
When considering individual phases, “examples and tips” for schools are offered
in the text (the term “school” includes both kindergartens and schools throughout

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the text), and what they “should” pay attention to at each stage. In the document’s
appendix, questionnaires are added, which schools (the terminology here specifically
talks about schools) can use in the process of self-evaluation. With the help of the
questionnaires, they can assess the extent to which the expected standard of implementation of improvements and self-evaluation has been reached (ibid., pp. 65-68).
In the introduction, the text presents the fields of quality. They are defined as
areas of basic operation that contribute to the realization of the school’s mission
(the terminology, which should also apply to kindergartens, is referring to “school”
(pupil, school, teacher)). Learning and teaching (in addition to pupils’ achievements) are again set as a priority, while other fields include school management
and professional development of employees, climate and culture of the school,
cooperation with parents, etc. Typical indicators are included for various fields,
for example, in the field of “learning and teaching,” the quality or correctness of
students’ responses, how the student compares, relates, and evaluates individual
content, etc. (ibid., pp. 12-14).
Regarding the priority field, the text presents “the basic findings of pedagogy
and psychology concerning learning and teaching,” which are said to “benefit schools
to thoroughly consider the issues of learning and teaching in their own situations”
(ibid., p.12). Indicators for this field can be qualitative (e.g., description of satisfaction, attitudes) and quantitative (e.g., data from national knowledge assessment),
and are shown as “indicators of knowledge, which are usually expressed in the form
of taxonomic levels or standards of knowledge” (ibid., p. 14).
In the evaluation of the priority field (similar to the rest of the fields), educational institutions follow the principle of improving the quality of learning and
teaching and of achievements of pupils (the writings stop mentioning children at
this point) in the planning phase: they define an improvement plan for a period of
three years and long-term goals in this field, which must be specific and measurable, and selected by the educational institution. The text takes into account the
“different starting points and documents” (e.g., general goals of education from
the Organization and Financing of Education Act), objectives from sectoral laws,
results of national and international examinations of knowledge (e.g., Assessment
of Knowledge, the matura examination, PISA, or PIRLS) and documents at the
national and transnational level (e.g., the Lifelong Learning Strategy, the Literacy
Strategy in Slovenia, Key Competences or Future Work Skills) (ibid., p. 29).
For the learning and teaching field, the following examples of goals are listed
in the Protocol (Brejc et al. 2014) (the terminology is again associated with schools
only): to improve the development of language for the efficient and creative use of
speech; to improve the development of motor skills; to develop critical and logical
thinking; to promote the development of the competence of learning to learn; to
improve functional literacy; to improve reading for understanding; to strengthen
work habits and pupils’ responsibility; to improve teacher-student relationships;
to reduce peer violence; to strengthen students’ ability to monitor and evaluate
their work and achievements; to strengthen the development of fundamental values
(mutual respect, tolerance, responsibility, knowledge, work and learning habits);
and to strengthen the concern for one’s own health and a conscious attitude toward

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the environment (ibid., p. 31). These include goals that can be followed in kindergartens (e.g., to improve the development of language for the efficient and creative
use of speech; to improve the development of physical abilities and skills). But
kindergartens in Slovenia, for example, cannot pursue the goal of improving pupils’
reading literacy, as children in kindergarten are not taught reading, but they are
taught to develop their pre-reading and pre-writing skills. Nonetheless we should
keep in mind that this concept is not foreign to some educational kindergartens
around the world. Similarly, the Protocol (Brejc et al. 2014) does not state a case
that could easily be applied to preschool education in kindergartens, in this regard.
The defined goals are followed by the preparation of an improvement plan
along with an action plan. Schools define the criteria for monitoring the achievement of goals. For the learning and teaching field, they set out criteria concerning
the “knowledge and skills of students” (ibid., p. 32). They include information that
will help schools follow the objectives pursued at the level of the activity of professional staff and the pupils’ results. We again observe terminology that relates only
to school – the same goes for all the represented stages of self-evaluation.
In the next phase of the self-evaluation process, the implementation of the
planned activities takes place, and the effectiveness and efficiency of implementing
planned activities to improve learning and teaching are monitored and self-evaluated. The Protocol (Brejc et al. 2014) lists and briefly presents various ways of
monitoring, the implementation of the activities, and the realization of the goals set
(e.g., a portfolio, a critical friend, teaching observations, mentoring), which enable
the collection of data regarding the achievement of set goals, that is, the pupils’
results and the collection of data regarding the process and effectiveness of the
implementation of the planned activities. The collected data can be quantitative
(counting and measuring, data on decrease, national knowledge assessments, etc.) or
qualitative (descriptions of phenomena, characteristics, processes, or relationships,
for example, satisfaction, opinion, etc.) (ibid., pp. 38-42). In order to monitor and
evaluate student achievements and introduce improvements, educational institutions
also use “the results of national (Assessment of Knowledge, Matura examination)
and international (PISA, TIMSS) examinations of knowledge” (ibid., p. 68).
At the final stage of the self-evaluation process, educational institutions evaluate the set goals of improvements on pupils and teachers, groups (e.g., assets)
and schools (ibid., p. 46). The institutions prepare a report in which, among other
things, employees write their reflections on the results of the self-evaluation process, answering the questions: “What are the concrete results at the level of the
implementation of the activity and the level of the results (achievements) of pupils?
How do we know this? What do the data show? Can they be compared to previous
years? Can the results be linked to the data of national knowledge assessments
(Assessment of Knowledge, Matura examination)?” (Ibid., p. 48).
The Protocol (Brejc et al. 2014) has operationalized reflections as set out in
the KVIZ Project (2008-2014): kindergartens are “lost” at both the terminological as well as the conceptual level here also. The document follows the field of
learning and teaching (and pupils’ achievements). The examples focus on school
and lessons; the specifics between the two institutions are not established. Experts

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(Vallberg Roth 2014; Alasuutari et al. 2014; Paananen et al. 2015) have already
pointed out that the work is focused (albeit unintentionally or unreflectively) on
the schooling of kindergarten practices. The preparation of the studied model of
collective assessment and assurance of quality was not guided by a reflection of
the specifics the two sub-systems of educational institution possess, as this would
otherwise be suggested in the content and the terminology used. Therefore, it is
completely expected that kindergarten staff (unlike those in schools, who believed
the self-evaluation process in the field of learning and teaching encourages a more
consistent and systematic monitoring of achievements of pupils) reported that the
goals they set “are difficult to measure with the achievements of children” (Zasnova
in uvedba ... 2013, p. 24). The objectives of the curriculum are not designed in such
a manner that they would normatively determine what all children in a given age
bracket should achieve; according to the current Preschool Curriculum (Kurikulum
za vrtce 1999), educational work in kindergarten is oriented towards the process
and progress of an individual child in various fields of development and learning.
Writings concerning the project in question often talk about the achievements in the field of learning and teaching, but fail to warn that achievements
of children in kindergartens cannot be understood as norms in development and
learning representing the framework of the functioning of schools; therein they
differ from the understanding of pupils’ achievements in school, which specifically
sets operational objectives and/or knowledge standards in the curriculum. Kindergartens speak of the achievements of the child’s individual development, that is,
the interaction between development (in the sense of disposition, maturity) and
learning. Quality assessment and assurance in kindergartens should therefore be
based on monitoring and progress of an individual child rather than comparing
a child with predetermined standards (e.g. norms in development, standards of
knowledge) that all children in kindergarten should reach at a certain age. Such
understanding of children’s achievements would allow a reflection on whether
the kindergarten has created opportunities for the development and learning of
each individual child in different areas of development and learning (Marjanovič
Umek 2011, p. 65). According to the agenda of official guidelines and documents,
as well as projects carried out by the competent institutions, it would be rather
surprising if the (self) evaluation of quality of kindergartens would be based on the
understanding of achievements of children as presented. Similarly, the Preschool
Curriculum (Kurikulum za vrtce 1999) does not talk about teaching in the school
sense of the word. Therefore, the established analogy with school in measuring
the achievement of children, which concerns the basis of the self-evaluation of
institutions, is professionally unacceptable.
Supporting the new model for assessing and ensuring the quality of kindergartens
As a continuation of the KVIZ Project (2008-2014), the Establishment, Complementation, and Pilot Test of the Model of Quality Assessment and Assurance in
Education - OPK project (2016-2020) (hereinafter referred to as the OPK Project)
was introduced and financed in Slovenia. Up to this point, the information about the

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project was scarce.19 The main objectives of the project are two: the establishment
of a national quality assessment and assurance system with relevant indicators at
all levels of education, and the preparation of a draft of “standards and indicators
for the field of learning and teaching (subsections: achievements of pupils, and the
development and learning of children)” (Šola za ravnatelje 2016). Along with the
application for the input of compulsory indicators at the systemic level of education,
they were to have been designed by August 2018. The quality assessment model
that is being tested through the OPK Project (2016-2020), will “gradually be implemented in all Slovenian kindergartens and schools” (Nacionalni okvir… 2017,
p. 15) after completion of the pilot phase of the project, in August 2018.
Open day material, prepared by the OPK Project (2016-2020), which provided
information about the course of the project to kindergartens and schools, stated
that they plan to follow and pursue the goal of “unifying the understanding and
approach of self-evaluation of schools and kindergartens by taking into account
sectoral specifics” (Brejc 2016, p. 7). However, the specifics of kindergarten are not
evident from the material: although we come across terms such as “kindergarten,
school” or “school, kindergarten,” the content draws attention to a differentiated
usage of different types of institutions. The term “children,” throughout the text,
is used in only one section, which explains that the task force for the preparation of
indicators of quality (led by the National Examinations Center) will try to answer
the question: “What do we want children, pupils, students to achieve (knowledge,
skills, relationships, values …)” that was set in the priority field of learning and
teaching, and its subsection of “achievements of pupils” (ibid., p. 11).
The specifics of kindergartens cannot be identified on the basis of the terminology used. Similarly, as the definitions of the accessible documents of a quality
model are non-differentiated, and the preparation and launch of the model at the
national level is justified by “international trends,” it seems that we are faced with
a structural fault, a fault revealing how, gradually but consistently, the expectations
of international financial organizations, as we presented in the introduction, are
being implemented in Slovenia and other countries in the field of preschool education. Slovenia draws from research funds and follows developmental orientations
through public tenders that rely on preschool education as preparation for school.
It is considered a factor of strengthening human resources, which in the long-run
significantly influences the development of the economy, and consequently the
development of the society as a whole, while leaving the structural and procedural
quality, and optimal development of children, in the background. The same month
we were finishing this text (September 2018), the deliberated quality model was
to be gradually introduced into kindergartens in Slovenia, so numerous things
remain unknown.
The €1,000,000 project is being executed under the Operational Programme for the Implementation of the European Cohesion Policy for the period 2014-2020. The operation is partly financed by the
European Union from resources of the European Social Fund (80%) and by the Ministry of Education,
Science and Sport as an intermediary body (20%). It is being implemented by the National School of
Leadership in Education, National Education Institute of Slovenia, Institute of the Republic of Slovenia
for Vocational Education and Training, and National Examination Center. With the public tender, four
kindergartens were selected for participation in the program (Šola za ravnatelje 2018a).
19

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In order to finalize our conclusions on the considered model of quality evaluation, it will be necessary to wait for the prepared standards and indicators of quality
for kindergartens that are being designed in the project. During the finalization
and submission of this text, the data were not yet presented nor accessible to the
public, although they should have been, according to the expected time frame. Not
even the basic information on which we could conclude the final part of the analysis
were made accessible. Answers to how kindergartens will monitor and evaluate the
achievements of children, and how they plan to connect the improvements with the
results of national (NPZ, Matura examination) and international (PISA, TIMSS)
examinations of knowledge, will be indicative for the assessment concerning the
discussions of this article. Will this integration be a basis for determining the effects of already established systemic and content solutions that have a “proven”
positive impact on subsequent results for children in the assessment of knowledge,
on the attainment of formal education, and on other achievements of children
in life?
On the basis of texts analyzed, project reports and cases presented in the text,
we estimate that the emergent model of quality assessment and assurance (at least
in regard to kindergartens) will follow international trends and requirements of the
concept of quality unreflectively, a concept that is “sufficiently universal precisely
because it has never been adequately well defined,” and thus, in essence, the “tendency to control” is being reinforced (Barle Lakota 2011, p. 68). We can only agree
with Andreja Barle Lakota (2009), that “international research has developed many
strategies to measure the quality of educational systems through achievements of
pupils, indirectly creating standards and indicators that have, to a certain extent,
linked national systems to the phantom community” (ibid., p. 68-69). However, as
the author adds, belief in these universal concepts of phantom communities did
not provoke questions: who defines standards, how internationally comparable
indicators are created, etc. (e.g. ibid.).
At the time the OPK Project (2016-2020) is being conducted, the board of the
Minister of Education, Science and Sport adopted the National Framework for Assessing and Assuring Quality of Education (Nacionalni okvir … 2017, hereinafter
the National Framework). It states that the need to assess and ensure quality in
the field of education is influenced by several factors, including increased sensitivity to the effectiveness of education systems and the awareness that high quality
education is essential for employability, social cohesion and overall economic and
social success in Europe (ibid., p. 4).
The theses are consistent with those presented in the introduction and affirm
that in the field of preschool education, policies of quality at a global level are set
in relation to the effectiveness of the latter. At the forefront is the expectation of
equating the entry conditions of success at school with general economic and social
success.
The document establishes a three-year cycle of quality assessment as part of
the Kindergarten Development Program and the basis for further planning of edu-

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cational work. In addition to the mandatory domains of self-evaluation,20 which are
identical to those proposed by the KVIZ Project (2008-2014) and the OPK Project
(2016-2020), kindergartens will have to define precisely the selected domains and
sub-domains that will be given special attention. The definitions of the optional
domains will be based on the acknowledged needs of the kindergarten, enabling
“better development and well-being” and “achieving the best results of working
and learning” in children (Nacionalni okvir ... 2017, p. 24). Furthermore, we follow
the requirements for compulsory monitoring of achievements of children in the
process of self-evaluation in kindergarten, which are subsections of the learning and
teaching field (ibid., p. 27). The statement in Obligatory sections and subsections
of quality monitoring (ibid.) is noteworthy, as it states the parameters for assistance in monitoring the achievements of children in the priority field: the results
obtained at national examinations of knowledge and Matura exams (e.g. ibid.). The
text also lists potential data sources and the database manager, which can be used
to monitor the achievements of children by self-evaluators in kindergartens: The
National Examinations Center and the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education21
are listed as managers.
Although the text explicitly states (which is a novelty in the texts analyzed)
that these data define only one “dimension of quality assurance” (ibid., p. 24),
it further notes that the results of this dimension “will be the basis for further
planning of activities and quality improvement in kindergartens” (ibid., p. 25).
National Framework (Nacionalni okvir … 2017), and further emphasizes that
“an awareness of the correlation between the results and the processes leading
to them is important” (ibid., p. 9), while at the same time states that quality assessment and assurance builds on the extraction of “data from existing databases,
while ensuring their integration into a whole” (ibid., p. 10). Kindergartens will
thus be able to obtain the collected data on national (National Examinations of
Knowledge, Matura examinations) and international examinations of knowledge
that are conducted by OECD and IEA (ibid., p. 13-14), from the databases of
external institutions (e.g., the National Examinations Center, the Educational
Research Institute). Thus, the basis for comparing the results of international
examinations of knowledge with the achievements of children in kindergarten is
established.
After analyzing the materials related to the KVIZ Project (2008-2014), its
progression, the OPK Project (2016-2020), and the National Framework (2017), we
established that, at least as far as it relates to their content, the Ministry and those
involved in the design of the solutions did not take the specifics of kindergartens
into account. While preparing the basis for all levels of educational institutions,
they did not formulate a conceptually distinct model of quality assessment and
20
Each year the Minister can set the indicators that are mandatory over a given period of time at
the national level. At the level of educational institutions, the Minister can determine an additional
section/subsection, which is in line with the national assessment of the needed improvements (Nacionalni okvir… 2017, p. 21).
21
This text also follows the logic that was established in the KVIZ Project (2008), and which we
also highlighted when we discussed the Protocol (2017).

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assurance that would take into account the specifics of the role and functioning of
kindergartens and schools.
Conclusion
Insight into the National Framework (Nacionalni okvir … 2017) and the
conceptualization of quality assessment and assurance in preschool education, as
well as research carried out in kindergartens in Slovenia, show that Slovenia is one
of the countries that the OECD Report (in Curristine 2007, p. 2) mentions, where
governments pay more and more attention to “creating incentives to increase the
effectiveness of education” (ibid.). This points to a recognizable orientation in efforts to improve quality in relation to the effectiveness of early childhood education
and the tendency to identify and measure the results of learning and achievements
of children in kindergartens (OECD 2012, p. 298) and their comparison with the
learning outcomes of children at school.
Arising from international analyses and recommendations for the development
of policies in the field of assessing and ensuring the quality of preschool education,
the analysis points to the uncritical and non-conceptual adoption of guidelines that
we have been witnessing for some time. It also draws attention to how easy and, for
policy-makers, unproblematic it is to transmit the guidelines for quality assessment
and assurance from the level of elementary school to preschool education (reflections
on teaching and learning in the “school” sense cannot be transferred to kindergarten).
After analyzing the available documents, one might think that the policy-makers in
Slovenia have overlooked the texts one of the responsible policy-makers of nearly
twenty years ago wrote ten years before the creation of the National Framework
(Nacionalni okvir … 2017), and the creation of a self-evaluation model in the KVIZ
Project (2008-2014) and the OPK Project (2016-2020). At that time, she pointed to
the danger that school policy would become increasingly concerned with the concept
of quality, “only measuring what is sometimes difficult or impossible to quantify;
that indicators of quality are too instrumental and insufficiently focused on the
fundamental mission of [...] education” (Barle Lakota 2007, p. 37). The warning
was completely on the mark. However, when it came to quality assessment and
assurance in the field of preschool education, the policy-makers unfortunately
did not take it to heart in regard to the implementation of systemic solutions. It
seems that decision-makers followed the trend of “engaging in the measurement
of efficiency;” moreover, they abandoned the model of quality for kindergartens,
which included assessment and assurance of all levels of quality by connecting and
thinking of them within the conceptual solutions of the Curriculum (Kurikulum za
vrtce 1999). We can only hope that the picture we present will be different, when
the materials with the prepared standards and quality indicators are published, and
when it is possible to determine how the monitoring of children’s achievements in
kindergarten was conceived within the framework of the OPK Project (2016-2020).
We finalize this text with the conclusion that in regards to the important
aspects of the procedural quality of kindergartens in Slovenia—which expects a

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critical evaluation and monitoring of the educational process, in which the child
who is developing and learning in interaction with adults and peers in the kindergarten is at the forefront, and in which the educational process is planned and
implemented in pursuit of the goal of educating a free, autonomous, and critical
subject—we still do not know much today. The analysis shows that this is not a
priority for key decision-makers and funders of research.
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