152


Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies/Sodobna pedagogika


Andreja Hočevar and
Mojca Kovač Šebart

Let./Vol. 69 (135)
Št./No. 4/2018
Str. 6–29/pp. 152–176
ISSN 0038 0474

Concern for the effectiveness
of preschool education or “soft
engineering” of the workforce of the
future?1
Abstract: The authors highlight that – together with the international studies which assess children’s
and adolescents’ knowledge and skills – policies and ideas in the field of preschool education are increasingly focusing on the effectiveness and “profitability” that preschool education has for the development of
“human capital” and the labour market. Thus, preschool education has been foregrounding the development of cognitive, social and emotional skills, which are the bases for children’s subsequent school and
labour market achievements. The authors present the findings of some of the authors who examine the
issues in Nordic countries. These authors emphasize that preschool educational processes give particular
importance to preparing children for school, which jeopardizes scholarizing them. Moreover, preschool
educational practice focuses primarily on children’s learning outcomes, especially on the development of
the skills that might be useful later in their lives – when they attend school or when they are employed.
In the second part of the article the authors analyse the other articles from this issue of the Journal of
Contemporary Educational Studies, whose authors from the region of former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia) write about the curricular and systemic solutions
of preschool education quality assessment and assurance at the process level.
Keywords: effectiveness, process quality, children’s achievements, learning outcomes, scholarization of
preschools, Baby Pisa
UDC: 373.2
Scientific article
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
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
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.



Hočevar, Kovač Šebart    153

Introduction
Assuring quality in education at the systemic level has been a central topic on
the global education agenda since the late 1980s (OZN 2015). Messages about the
importance of education for a well-regulated and successful economy (UN 2002) and
as a means of enabling countries to successfully face challenges in global markets
(UNESCO 2002) have also been almost constantly at the forefront of discussion. In
the policies of EU countries, systemic quality assurance, which primarily related to
schools, initially focused only marginally on the area of preschool education. This
focus later become increasingly explicit and direct, with the result that today systemic
solutions for assuring and increasing the quality of preschool education (European
Commission 2015, p. 10) are to a significant extent established in relation to the effectiveness of that education, which is reflected in children’s learning outcomes2 as they
2
Learning outcomes are usually defined as statements of what a learner is expected to know, be
able to do and understand at the end of a learning sequence. The term is used in the context of education
programmes, learning and teaching, and the goals or standards of knowledge that learners are expected to
attain, as assessed by means of grades or in some other way. Criteria are also formulated to assess learning
outcomes in external or international tests and surveys. Under the current preschool curriculum, on the
other hand, there is no normative definition of the standards of knowledge that kindergarten children are
supposed to achieve. Children in kindergartens are not “taught” in the way they are at school. The term
“learning outcomes” is also used for the concept of lifelong learning, which is based on the assumption
that it is not important how an individual achieves expected learning outcomes, but rather how he or she
is able to demonstrate them (and adequately measure them), in other words in the context of outcomes
in various areas of life (Štefanc 2011, p. 11). Another term used is “learning achievements”, for which it
is possible to design descriptive standards, where the descriptor for the lowest number of points or the
lowest passing mark represents the minimum standard (Ilc Rutar 2012, p. 17). Descriptors or descriptive
standards can thus be used to define the quality of the demonstration of a specific aspect of knowledge
or skill at individual levels (from the optimum standard to the minimum standard) (Ilc Rutar 2012a, p.
113). For kindergartens, this would mean that in order to monitor the quality of children’s (learning)
achievements, teachers would require defined standards for an individual area of children’s development
and learning, with the help of which they would be able to monitor the achievements of an individual child.
Hassan Mas’ud Dahar (in Winarso 2016, p. 21) defines a learning achievement as “what has to be created;
the results of a job . . . obtained with tenacity.” Slameto (ibid.) emphasises that learning is a process in
which an individual attempts to change their behaviour in interaction with their environment, while a
learning achievement is the actual change that takes place in the individual in this process. Nur Kencana
(ibid.) defines a learning achievement as the results achieved by an individual child as the consequence of
the changes that have occurred in the individual as the result of learning. “Learning achievements” are

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continue their education, and with regard to life outcomes in adulthood (cf. Guerin
2013).
Policymakers appear to accept that countries are increasingly competing “on
the basis of their talent and human capital” (Economist Intelligence Unit 2012,
p. 31). On the one hand they see preschool education as an opportunity to reduce
those differences between children that are the consequence of them living in different environments, and to achieve higher levels of formal education in children
from disadvantaged environments, while on the other they understand preschool
education as a factor that offers increased opportunities to reduce deficits and
strengthen the economy (Heckman 2012, p. 1). Investing in preschool education
is therefore understood as an investment in people “as early in life as possible”
(Economist Intelligence Unit 2012, p. 31), that brings the “highest return on
investment for individuals, particularly the most disadvantaged, throughout the
entire process of lifelong learning” (Heckman 2012, p. 1; cf. also Guerin 2013,
p. 6; Barnett and Nores 2015, pp. 75–76).3 It also generates “the highest medium
and long-term returns for public budgets” (Education and Culture DG 2008, p. 1).4
This is the basis on which EU member states adopt systemic preschool education solutions that represent “value for money” from the economic point of view
(OECD 2012, p. 1; cf. also OECD 2013, European Commission 2015). This means
that they must be comparably effective both with regard to the time that children
spend in preschool education and with regard to their later learning outcomes at
school, particularly in external testing and comparative international assessments
of knowledge (e.g. TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS) (cf. OECD 1999, European Commission
2015, Ministry of Education 2017, p. 8; OECD 2017, p. 10; Skopek et al. 2017, pp.
299–300). As the economists Yusuf Emre Akgunduz and Thomas van Huizen (2016)
have pointed out, these results tell us a great deal about the “long-term results of
investment in human capital . . . and individuals’ labour market outcomes” (ibid.,
p. 1). They also show what learning outcomes and other long-term life outcomes
for students can be “fostered” by investment in preschool education at the national
level (ibid., p. 2).

therefore “visible” in the behaviour of an individual child, in the development of the abilities and various
skills that are the result or outcome of children’s learning. In view of these definitions – particularly that
of “learning achievements” – the question this raises itself of what teachers in kindergartens in Slovenia
will be monitoring when, as part of the quality assurance process at the systemic level they, monitor
children’s achievements in the area of learning and teaching (more on this in the article by Kovač Šebart
and Hočevar in this issue of Sodobna pedagogika).
3
For children from marginal groups, attending a kindergarten enables a “better entry to life” –
above all as regards preparation of the school and success in later education, since a larger proportion
of those who attend kindergarten reach the tertiary level of education than those who do not (Guerin
2013, p. 17; Heckman 2012, p. 25), while their future productivity is also better (Barnett and Nores
2015, p. 76).
4
Investment in [preschool education] has significant implications for future government budgets,
both at the national and the state and local levels. Higher tax revenues also flow into government coffers
because of increasing taxes paid by participating children and their parents (Lynch and Vaghul 2015,
p. 9).

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Results of empirical studies justifying investment in “human capital“
In the context of the view of the effectiveness of preschool education presented
here, it is no surprise to learn that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) has recently published a call for tenders for an International
Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS) (OECD 2018).5 The IELS recognises that the first five years of children’s lives are crucial to their development.6
During this period, children learn at a faster rate than at any other time in their
lives, developing basic cognitive and socio-emotional skills7 that are fundamental
for their future achievements in school and later on as adults. These skills also
affect how individuals cope with future successes and setbacks, professionally and
in their personal lives (OECD 2017, p. 6).
For this reason, the IELS will look at the early learning outcomes and development
of children enrolled in preschool education programmes across a wide scope of domains,
including cognitive, social and emotional skills (ibid., p. 14). Children will be assessed
in the early learning domains of emergent literacy,8 emergent numeracy,9 self-regulation10 or self-awareness with an emphasis on locus of control,11 executive function12

Some authors (e.g. Goddard 2017; Ochshorn 2017) and organisations (e.g. ACEI; UCL) refer to
the study as “Baby Pisa” for short.
6
The IELS will sample at least 3,000 children aged between 5 and 5.5 years in at least 200 settings
per country and with up to 15 children per setting. The children will carry out for 15-minute one-to-one
assessments over two days (Goddard 2017). The study will begin in autumn 2018 and its results are
expected to be presented in 2019 (OECD 2018).
7
The OECD documents and other documents covered in this text refer frequently to “skills”,
“abilities” and “capabilities”. An individual acquires skills in the course of the learning process. Skills
also include knowledge of whatever the subject of the skill is. Abilities and capabilities, meanwhile, are
defined as the set of individual characteristics that potentially enable an individual to be successful in
a given activity without previous exercise. The sources we quote also frequently refer to “knowledge
and skills” together, in this way highlighting knowledge that is not only connected to a concrete skill
and that is incorporated in the latter.
8
Emergent literacy refers to children’s knowledge of print, letters and sounds, which will help
them to learn to decode and read for meaning, building upon oral language skills (OECD 2015, p. 19).
9
Numeracy is the ability to reason and apply simple numerical concepts. It comprises the ability
to identify and understand numbers as well as computational skills, i.e. the ability to count and to
perform simple arithmetical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and
compare numerical magnitudes (ibid.).
10
Self-regulation generally encompasses self-control, grit, self-management and conscientiousness.
These abilities enable children to persist in achieving goals and to regulate their behaviour. The latter
manifests through inhibiting impulsive behaviours and delaying gratification (Mischel et al. 1989, as
quoted in ibid, p. 19). As well as achieving tasks, children with such abilities are more able to operate
effectively in groups than children with poor behaviour regulation (OECD 2015, p.19).
11
Self-awareness refers to children’s own beliefs about whether they possess the ability to complete
tasks, and encompasses aspects such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-efficacy and locus of control
(John and De Fruyt 2015, quoted in ibid., p. 20).
12
Executive function focuses on the ability of children to regulate attention, including controlling
reactions to new stimuli. The capacity to regulate attention is understood as a developmental precursor for the broader domain of self-regulation (Barkley 1997 quoted in ibid., p. 20). Executive function
additionally provides information on working memory and planning, which are also associated with
later academic development (OECD 2015, p. 20).
5

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and social skills.13 These domains are recognised14 as predictors of later academic
and other life outcomes. The IELS will encompass the collection of “robust empirical
information and in-depth insights on children’s learning development at a critical
age” (OECD 2017, p. 14). The study will also give policymakers insight into what
preschool education practices equip children with the skills they will need in the
labour market and in life (Williamson 2018, p. 4). This will establish a basis for
directing educational practice in preschool education towards the development of
“suitable” i.e. effective skills. Frank Furedi (2016) calls this “soft social engineering”
that is devoted to “altering the behaviour of schoolchildren” (ibid., p. 149) in order
to “help them deal with a complex, changing environment” (ibid., p. 145), in which
it is not “what people know” that is important (in the sense of knowledge as a value
in itself), but the possession of the mental capacity to “adapt and respond to new
circumstances” (ibid., p. 49).
The aim of the study becomes understandable if we compare it to two other
OECD studies that include studying the knowledge and skills of children or adolescents. In 2015 the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (OECD
2018a) assessed and measured three sets of skills – problem-solving, cooperation and
social skills – for the first time (alongside knowledge of biology, geography, physics,
chemistry and mathematics) (Williamson 2018). Cooperative skills (cf. footnotes
10 and 13) and social skills (cf. footnote 13) will also be measured and assessed by
the IELS. A new international study, the Study on Social and Emotional Skills
or SSES (OECD 2018b),15 set to begin in autumn 2018, with the first results due
in 2020 (OECD 2017, p. 9), will, says the OECD (2017), facilitate understanding
of the dynamics of development of social and emotional skills and their impact on
socio-economic outcomes in the lives of individuals.16 This study, like the IELS, will
measure and assess skills such as cooperation, self-regulation and self-management
13
Social skills include prosocial behaviour, agreeableness, sociability and empathy. Social skills are
those skills involved in interacting with others and maintaining positive relationships with others. In
particular, collaboration requires the ability to take the perspective of another, to demonstrate prosocial behaviour (i.e. showing kindness, sharing, cooperation, and respect for others), agreeableness and
empathy (ibid.).
14
The domains adopted for this study were proposed by the UCL Institute of Education. Children’s
abilities and skills in these domains will be measured/assessed using indirect and direct assessment
methods. Children’s emergent literacy, emergent numeracy, self-regulation and empathy will be assessed directly, with children using tablets to complete tasks based on simple and fun stories and games.
Children’s cognitive and socio-emotional and social skills will be assessed indirectly by teachers and
parents through questionnaires (OECD 2017, p. 17).
15
The study will take a single snapshot of two cohorts of primary and secondary school students,
at ages 10 and 15. The OECD aims to use the study to build on the findings of PISA.
16
The SSES will study the “Big Five” domains: openness to experience (open-mindedness), conscientiousness (task performance), emotional stability (emotional regulation), extroversion (engaging
with others) agreeableness (collaboration). Each of the categories encompasses a cluster of mutually
related social and emotional skills. For example, task performance includes achievement orientation,
reliability, self-control and persistence. Emotional regulation includes resistance to stress, optimism and
controller feelings. Collaboration also includes empathy and trust. Open-mindedness includes curiosity,
tolerance and creativity. Engaging with others includes sociability, assertiveness and energy. The study
will also measure and assess compound skills such as critical thinking, metacognition and self-efficacy.

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(cf. footnotes 10–13). The authors believe that these skills are significantly linked
to academic and other social outcomes. Among other things, they affect individuals’
entry to and participation in the labour market and the general quality of their
lives (ibid.).17 These skills are also considered a “major driving force of growth
through their effect on labour productivity” (OECD 2013a). They are essential
for young people to enter the labour market, access good-quality jobs and embark
on successful careers. They are also crucial for adults “to keep abreast of technological developments and maintain their employability in a rapidly changing and
inter-dependent world” (ibid.).
The three studies – PISA (OECD 2018a), SSES (OECD 2018b) and IELS
(OECD 2018) – will thus look at learning outcomes and the noncognitive aspects of
learning. The results of the studies will therefore enable a comparison of the knowledge, personality characteristics and skills of children and adolescents that affect
the lifelong learning and life outcomes of adults at the global level, above all in the
labour market (OECD 2017, p. 9). On this basis, countries will be able to formulate
reflections on educational practices that will produce resourceful individuals capable
of working well with others and taking personal and collective responsibility for
the life of society (OECD 2017a, p. 1). These reflections are therefore consistent
with the aims of social development policymakers at the level of the OECD, which
recommends “investing in people and places, supporting business dynamism, and
creating more inclusive labour markets” and in this way laying “foundations for
more sustainable growth” and productivity (OECD 2018c, p. 1). They are also in
line with the aims of the European Commission (2010), which wishes to increase
the effectiveness of member states’ education systems and make it easier for young
people to enter the labour market and “ensure smart, sustainable and inclusive
growth” (ibid., p. 5).
With the design of the IELS, the OECD is following the objectives it set itself
in 2012, namely to collect information on early learning in individual countries that
will enable an improvement in preschool education programmes and lead to better
performance at the global level (OECD 2012, p. 7; OECD 2017, p. 6); in time, this
information will enable a comparison between early learning outcomes “and those
at age 15, as measured by PISA”18 and their interpretation “in the light of information from the IELS” (OECD 2015, p. 103; cf. also OECD 2015, p. 55). Countries
included in the study will have “earlier and more specific indications” that will
enable reflection on “how to lift the skills and capabilities of their young people”
(OECD 2017, p. 14).
It should be emphasised here that the IELS will measure personality characteristics and skills that are important indicators of children’s later academic and
More on this in OECD 2014, OECD 2015a and OECD 2017a.
When reflecting on “Baby PISA” and linking the findings, we should not overlook the fact,
underlined by the OECD (1999), that PISA measures the “the knowledge and skills essential for full
participation in society and the successful participation of the individual in the labour market” (ibid.,
p.<0} 7).
17
18

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other life achievements.19 A problem pointed out in this connection by some authors
(cf. Blossfeld et al. 2017) is that a situation is being established in which the focus
of education becomes the formation of individuals who are adapted in terms of
personality and skills to the dominant social conditions, which above all encourages
the development of abilities and skills that are geared towards the labour market
(cf. Krnjaja and Pavlović Breneselović 2017).
The devisers of the IELS underline the fact that countries will also be able to
exchange “best practices” in preschool education, while the collected data will show
“what systemic solutions are most effective in preschool education, in what areas
and for what groups of children” (OECD 2018, Goddard 2018). This will facilitate
insight into what preschool education can achieve at the level of children’s learning
outcomes and what factors are connected with these results (OECD 2015, p. 103). It
will also be possible to seek, on this basis, answers to the question of “how to improve
the effectiveness, equity and efficiency [in terms of use of resources invested] of . . .
preschool education systems” (OECD 2015, p. 96). Studying the results of all
three studies mentioned will serve as a basis for connecting findings on children’s
performance across the entire education vertical, enabling comparisons of data
(Williamson 2017, pp. 4–5) and an assessment of how successful investment in
people is (has been) at an individual level of education (OECD 2009, p. 2), in other
words how much “added value” this investment has brought as regards human
capital.
The OECD website states that “the Study is not an assessment of school
readiness” and that “the Study is focused on children’s longer-term outcomes in a
wide scope of life domains” (OECD 2018). At the same time, however, the devisers
of the study emphasise that “the information from this study will also assist decision-makers to better understand the further contribution that their preschool
education systems can make for improving children’s learning, in relation to the
possible further contribution that early primary schooling can make” (OECD 2015,
p. 103). In the United States of America, for example, participation in the IELS
is justified with the argument that it “helps countries to better understand how
their preschool education systems prepare children for primary school”20 (National
19
Among other things it will measure self-management, conscientiousness, persistence in achieving
goals and the ability to regulate attention (OECD 2017, str. 14). The devisers of the SSES emphasise
that it will also provide decision-makers with insight into what preschool education practices equip
children with the skills that they will need in the labour market and in life. The SSES will also measure
those personality characteristics and abilities that, according to the devisers of the study, are significantly connected to academic progress and also affect a range of social outcomes, including individuals'
inclusion and participation in the labour market and the general quality of their lives.
20
More telling than the reference to gaining better insight into the preparation of children for
school in an individual country (which taken out of context does not necessarily refer to the focus of
the educational process on the child’s “academic readiness”), is the selection of countries that will
take part in the IELS. These are: England, the United States of America (USA) and Estonia (Roberts
2018). The first two of these countries have a separate system of kindergartens. In England, children
under the age of three attend day nurseries with a focus on childcare, attend playgroups or are looked

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Center for Education Statistics,21 year unknown). Since the effectiveness of preschool
education is at the same time measured by learning outcomes that include the
knowledge and, above all, the skills that children need in their further schooling
and (professional) life, some authors (Otterstad and Braathe 2016; Paananen et al.
2015; Paananen 2017; Vallberg Roth 2014) warn that highlighting these dimensions
leads to a “schoolification” of preschool education; kindergarten classes are formed
through “homogeneous grouping by age” (Otterstad and Braathe 2016, p. 3027),
attention is focused on “academic” contents (Paananen 2017; Otterstad and Braathe
2016, p. 3028);22 didactic approaches are adopted “in which active teaching by the
after at home or by members of their extended family. All three- and four-year olds are entitled to 570
hours of free preschool education annually, in kindergartens “where the emphasis is on learning and
preparing children for school” (Bela knjiga … 2011, p. 78). In the foreground here are the cognitive
aspects of the child’s development and learning, which ready children for school and prepare them
for more formal learning (Wall et al. 2015, p. 7; Whitebread et al. 2017). In most cases children attend
kindergarten for 15 hours a week over a period of 38 weeks. Two-year-old children from disadvantaged
families have the same entitlement. Most children are admitted to the reception class of a primary
school in the September after their fourth birthday (Eurydice 2017). In the USA, the solutions adopted
for children under three are similar to those in England. After their third birthday children can enrol
in a public preschool (pre-kindergarten) programme. At the age of five they enrol in a kindergarten for
a year in preparation for compulsory primary school (kindergarten is the first year of formal schooling
in the USA) (OECD 2006). Estonia has two parallel systems of pre-school education – crèches/day
care facilities (for children up to the age of three) and combined day care/kindergartens (for children
from birth up to the age of seven). Parents of children under the age of three can choose which type
of facility to enrol their children in, while for children over the age of three a kindergarten is the only
option. Before starting school, a child’s readiness for school is assessed by the kindergarten, which
then issues a school readiness card (Republic of Estonia 2014). Assessment of readiness for school can
involve asking the child to read a short text, to write something, to perform a mental calculation and
to answer a teacher’s questions (Kingisepp and Luure 2010, p. 17). Parents submit the child’s school
readiness card to the school where the child is to be enrolled in compulsory education (Republic of
Estonia 2014). As can be understood from this brief presentation of the organisation of preschool education systems in the countries that will be included first in the IELS, the study will focus on children
attending preparation for school programmes (England and the USA) or in which the preparation of
children for school is in the foreground (Estonia). As we have shown, the purpose of the IELS is to
show countries what the most effective preschool education practices are; it appears from the first set
of countries to be included in the study, however, that the solutions that will be studied are those of
preparation for school programmes that are primarily connected to “mastering academic skills” (Bela
knjiga … 2011, p. 84). In the PISA 2015 survey, for example, Estonian 15-year-olds were among the
best in the world in biology, geography, physics and chemistry – first in Europe and third on the global
scale. In mathematics they were second in Europe and ninth in the world. The USA has poorer results
in all areas, but is nevertheless above the OECD average, while data are not available for England
because they are included in data for the United Kingdom (Estonian World 2018).
21
The National Center for Education Statistics is part of the US Department of Education’s
Institute of Education Sciences.
22
Authors warn that practices that we find in schools are being established in kindergartens (cf.
Gaunt 2017). That preparation for school is objectively and, notwithstanding other possible concepts,
increasingly understood as a focus of a kindergarten on “the child’s academic readiness . . . for school”
(Marjanovič Umek et al. 2006, p. 33). Although we do not overlook the importance that kindergartens
have in preparation for school – since objectively speaking a school cannot fully “adapt to each individual child and his or her individual particularities, but builds on a certain level of adaptation of the
individual (from the point of view of physical, cognitive and social development) to the requirements of
curricula or the school, which at the initial level is involved above all in the development of academic
skills” (ibid.) – we nevertheless reject the understanding of preparation for school that is implied in the
context described earlier. More acceptable than this is the concept of a child’s readiness for learning,

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teacher takes the central role” (ibid., p. 3028; cf. also Vallberg Roth 2014), and
decision-makers call for “more dicstinct learning goals, preparation for assessing/
testing all children from 3 years of age” (ibid., p. 3029).
Rianne Mahon (2016) states that “preparation for school” is the primary
interest of the OECD and of the proposed study, which serves to “foster the development of human capital as a basis for labour market success” (ibid., p. 239)
Other critics (Moss et al. 2016, Pence 2017) also draw attention to the instrumental purpose of the study and point out that it neglects to take a holistic view
of the child, since its devisers highlight above all the study of children’s learning
outcomes.
The IELS will complete the circle: as far as policy is concerned, the focus
will be on the justifiability of investment in preschool education and the “return”
on this investment as regards the development of “human capital” or the labour
market. The latter will also be measured at successive stages of education through
the results obtained by children in international and external tests of their knowledge and skills in connection with length of time spent in preschool education
and other life outcomes. At the same time the study will enable policymakers to
assess the rationality of expenditure on preschool education. Demands to reduce
preschool education expenditure in one country could be prompted by the finding,
for example, that in other countries with lower preschool education expenditure
children enrolled in preschool education programmes nevertheless develop those
cognitive, social and emotional skills that are the basis for their later achievements
in education and in adulthood and achieve comparable or better learning outcomes
in international tests of knowledge and skills.
The IMF’s 2015 recommendation with regard to kindergartens in Slovenia,
which suggests that the number of kindergarten teachers could be reduced without
negatively affecting children’s learning outcomes, may be understood in this same
context (International Monetary Fund 2015, p. 14).23 This suggestion from the
which according to R. Watson (1996, as quoted in ibid., p. 32) means in each case a correspondence
between a child’s cognitive abilities and the requirements of formal, intentional education and learning
(cf. Marjanovič Umek et al. 2006, pp. 32–33). L. Marjanovič Umek (ibid.) emphasises that for the intentional education of preschool children it is important to be aware that a preschool child learns differently
from a school-age child, and therefore advocates different activities and different methods and forms of
educational work based on the zone of proximal development. These are adapted to the child himself or
herself, while the teacher plans and implements the educational process in accordance with the social
context and the child’s capabilities (in this context the author uses the expression “teaching”) (ibid.).
Notwithstanding the clear warning not to equate teaching in schools with teaching in kindergartens,
we will substitute the phrase “teaching in kindergartens” with the phrase “systematic learning by the
child in a planned educational process”, which is tied to the gap between the child’s current knowledge
or skills and his or her potential progress. No reflection on education in kindergartens can ignore the
influence of the kindergarten on children’s later performance in schools, since the ability to access abstract
knowledge is the basis of an individual’s autonomy. Naturally one cannot overlook the compensatory
role of the kindergarten, particularly in the case of children from less supportive environments. This
does not mean, however, that preschool education should be focused above all on learning outcomes at
kindergarten, learning outcomes in later schooling and success in the labour market.
23
We should point out, however, that Slovenia does not submit data on student–teacher ratios in
kindergarten classes to international organisations (e.g. OECD, Eurydice) in such a way as to take into
account the fact that the calculated averages apply to six hours of kindergarten for children in the first

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IMF could easily become an argument for decision-makers who wish to reduce the
financial impact of preschool education on the budget while not understanding
or not caring that this could negatively affect the structural quality of preschool
education and, consequently, the quality of the preschool education process. This
is confirmed by the contents of the OECD’s call for tenders regarding the IELS,
where we read that studies of the relationship between structural factors of quality
in preschool education and children’s development do not conclusively demonstrate that such factors play a part in determining the quality and effectiveness of
preschool education (and with them children’s well-being) (ibid, p. 95). Which is
only a step away from an interpretation suggesting that a state could design and
maintain an effective system of preschool education that will contribute the desired
added value to learning outcomes in tests of knowledge and (economic) success in
life with less-qualified teachers, larger class sizes and a higher student–teacher
ratio.
The presented scheme and, consequently, the practice of quality assurance
in preschool education therefore result in expectations of the formation of individuals who will find their place in the labour market and adopt everything that
the market brings with it (flexibility, competitiveness, etc.). The door is open to the
“homogenisation . . . [and] effective management” of preschool education (Soler
and Miller 2003, p. 60). Knowledge and skills (social, emotional, etc.) are listed here
in the sense of their instrumental usefulness, utilitarian sense of a tool which the
individual needs in the process of adaptation to the labour market.
Policies for assuring quality thus do not reflect (or are not interested in reflecting) the fact that the formative process and the effect of preschool education
are different when the key goals are the holistic development of the child and the
education of a subject capable of critical judgement and behaviour, where knowledge is reflected as something inherently valuable that does not always have direct
useful value but is a condition for the individual’s understanding of the world and a
condition of his or her freedom and autonomy (cf. Egan 2009, Gauchet 2011, Kovač
Šebart 2015, Furedi 2016). Freedom and autonomy are not given to the individual,
they require an educational process in which the child gains increasing self-control
and becomes a civilised being in a wide range of senses, from simple politeness to
the most complex reflection. The goal of education and care in those preschool
education institutions that set themselves the goal of optimal development and
the formation of an autonomous individual would have to be, as Claudine Leleux
(1997) points out, that the latter transcends his or her particularity and reaches
a level of universality and a capacity for critical thinking that follows the general
rules of argumentation and is expressly connected to understanding of abstraction
and abstract value. This should also be the guiding principle when thinking about
solutions that will lead to a high-quality system of education and care from the
preschool level upwards.
age group and just four hours for children in the second age group, while children actually remain at
kindergarten for on average nine or more hours a day. In the remaining hours there is only one adult in
the class with all the children (of whom there can be up to 14 or up to 24, depending on the age group
(Kovač Šebart et al. 2017, p. 97).

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Return on investment, efficiency and rationality are becoming the
guiding principle of preschool education policy
Warnings about the effects of policies that focus on the “return on investment” of preschool education for the development of “human capital” or the labour
market are proffered by authors (Campbell-Barr and Nygård 2014; Vallberg Roth
2014; Paananen et al. 2015; Otterstad and Braathe 2016) who have analysed the
situation in preschool education in Nordic countries24 (which have a comparable
system of preschool education to Slovenia’s). Concerning Norway, for example, Ann
Merete Otterstad and Hans Jørgen Braathe (2016) say that it is possible to identify,
in documents and preschool education policy but also in educational practice in
preschool institutions, changes regarding understanding of the role of preschool
education in society. Interviews conducted by the authors with teachers in two
focus groups25 confirmed the theses they had formulated on the basis of analysis
of documents: they note that despite the social pedagogical starting points of the
conception of preschool education that are traditional for Norway, the attention of
teachers is in practice oriented (or re-oriented) towards economic standards and
those indicators of preschool education quality that directly regard standards of
knowledge and children’s learning outcomes. This can be seen from the reorganisation of space and time in preschool education institutions in a way that enables
teachers to evaluate children’s learning outcomes and monitor the learning of an
individual child. In Norwegian preschool education institutions, the authors observe, children’s readiness for school is moving into the foreground – in contrast
to the past, when little attention was devoted to this aspect (ibid., p. 82) – and thus
increasing the danger of “schoolification” of preschool education (ibid., pp. 93–94).
At this point we merely point out that attention was drawn to the problem of
schoolification of preschool education in Slovenia in the White Paper on Education
in the Republic of Slovenia (Bela knjiga … 1995). In the period before the formulation of conceptual solutions and the systemic solutions based on them (cf. Zakon o
organizaciji ... 1996, Zakon o vrtcih 1996) and the creation of a Preschool curriculum
(cf. Kurikulum ... 1999), the most important task of kindergartens in Slovenia was
to prepare children for school (more on this in the article by Hočevar and Kovač
Šebart in this issue of Sodobna pedagogika). The new concept of preschool education
rejected such a central function for the kindergarten (cf. Kovač Šebart 2002). The
devisers of the concept evaluated changes in curriculum planning and at the same
time rejected the programme of preparation for school in the year before children are
due to start compulsory education. They built on the hypothesis that “preparation
for school must be incorporated into overall institutional preschool education, so
preschool programmes should correspond to children’s stage of development and
not merely be preparation for the next stage of schooling” (Bela knijga … 1995,
p. 95). At the same time the solutions follow the argument that such a programme
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Two focus groups of preschool teachers were included in the study. One group consisted of six
teachers from an urban environment and the other of 9 teachers from a rural environment (ibid., p.
84).
24
25

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is unnecessary if the school (educational programme, methods of work, organisation
of life in the school) is adjusted to the child, in other words if it takes into account
the age at which the child starts school (Marjanovič Umek 1992, p. 10). The systemic
solutions for preschool education, conceived in parallel with solutions involving the
earlier start of compulsory schooling at the age of six, saw the kindergarten as an
institution that provides children with a suitable environment and conditions for
a safe and healthy childhood and the optimal development of their physical and
mental abilities, and contributes to raising children’s quality of life and improving
the quality of family life (Bela knjiga … 1995, p. 43 and p. 37). The view was adopted that educational work in kindergartens should derive from the realisation
that children comprehend and understand the world holistically, that they develop
and learn in connection with their social and physical environment, that through
interaction with their peers at kindergarten they develop their own sociability and
individuality and encounter a world that is differently structured from the world
of the family. An orientation towards the development of children’s achieved and
potential abilities and skills and the achievement of an optimal relationship between
them became important (ibid, p. 51). This concept of preschool education, which
is contained in the Preschool curriculum (Kurikulum za... 1999), is still formally
followed today in Slovenia.
The ideals that are (were) the basis of preschool education are being supplanted by
economic imperatives
Maiju Paananen et al. (2015), Verity Campbell-Barr and Mikael Nygård (2014)
warn that in Finland the ideals that are the basis of preschool education are being
supplanted by economic imperatives. Paananen (2017) carried out an analysis of
international and Finnish national documents concerning preschool education and
supplemented her analysis with an empirical study26 at three kindergartens in one
of the larger Finnish municipalities. She finds that measuring tools, which she calls
“management tools”, are already being used in individual local communities in
order to assess the effectiveness of kindergartens on a monthly basis and reward
teachers assessed as “effective”, which has not been the practice in Finland before
now (ibid., p. 59). As a result of this clear focus on children’s learning outcomes
and their future, everyday educational practice in kindergartens is changing, warns
the author, since teachers are following demands to prepare children for school
(ibid., p. 78).
The findings of the comparative analysis carried out by Ann-Christine Vallberg Roth (2014) also show that changes are observable in preschool education
in all Nordic countries in the context of the knowledge economy.27 The traditional conceptualisation of preschool education is being replaced by a primary
26
She analysed 118 individual children’s education plans and 13 teachers’ diaries in which the daily
educational process in the kindergarten was recorded, and interviewed 13 teachers (ibid., p. 35).
27
In the globalised knowledge economy there is a sharper focus on efficiency and assessments which
are increasingly being formalised including in preschool education (Vallberg Roth 2014, p. 2).

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focus on children’s learning outcomes (ibid., p. 4). There is a clear trend or
shift from an educational process focused on play, learning and care to one
that is focused on learning and knowing, and to evaluation of the effects of
preschool education that are connected to the idea of lifelong learning (ibid., p. 5).
preschool education should thus be primarily understood (in terms of both scope
and quality) as a substantive basis for compulsory schooling and as a basis for “postschool” entry into working life; it should also be a basis that ensures that when
children grow up, they constantly renew their knowledge and develop the skills they
will need at work, wherever they are employed (industry, service organisations and
activities, etc.) (Demirel 2009, p. 1712); this will make it easier for them to adapt to
the demands of the world of business, in other words the world that brings profit
(Otterstad and Braathe 2010, p. 3025).
In the Nordic countries, writes Vallberg Roth (2014), a tendency towards the
introduction of contents that prepare children for school may be observed, where
the emphasis is on stimulating their cognitive development and assessing their
knowledge and skills with the help of predetermined and age-normed learning
outcomes (ibid., p. 25). While Norway, for example, carries out language screening
of three-year-olds using standardised assessment criteria (ibid., p 23), Denmark is
introducing testing and an orientation of the educational process towards the development of skills (such as key competences). The author (ibid., p. 14) warns that
monitoring the learning outcomes of an individual child leads to the schoolification
of preschools, in which educational work and its content are structured in the same
way as in schools, while preschool teachers, because they feel “learning pressure”
(ibid., p. 5) introduce a school-style method of work and teach the children in a
context of individual subject areas. The contents they teach are adapted to what the
children will need at school and in life, warns the author (ibid., pp. 16–26). She adds
that a model of preschool education is being established that places the learning
outcomes of the child in individual subject areas (e.g. mathematics, language) in
the foreground (ibid., p. 4), and that narrowing the process of preschool education
to teaching measurable knowledge and skills means neglecting the process of
forming individuals who are capable of critical reflection (ibid., p. 26). Analysis of
changes in preschool education in Nordic countries, notes the author, shows that
the concept of preschool education as an “investment in the future” is gaining
ground – a concept in which “what is considered important is that children gain
skills that will be useful later in life while they are at school or in the workplace”
(ibid., p. 23).
The target of the criticisms presented in the introduction regarding the focus
on the effectiveness of preschool education is becoming clear: the stated aims of the
policy resonate with the public and become the guiding principle for the funding of
preschool education and when it comes to seeking systemic solutions – and perhaps
also when it comes to rewarding “effective” preschools and preschool teachers, as
Maiju Paananen (2017) warns in the case of Finland. All this has an enormous
impact on educational practice in preschool education, which begins to focus on
children’s learning outcomes and preparing them for school.

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Preschool education quality assurance policies in the countries of the
former Yugoslavia
In this thematic issue of Sodobna pedagogika, authors from Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BiH), Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia analyse systemic
solutions for assuring quality in preschool education at the process level in the
states of the former Yugoslavia.
We agreed that the analysis for each individual state should include a presentation of the preschool education curriculum or programmes, which in most cases
appears in the introduction. This is followed by a presentation of the established
concepts or models of quality assurance. The articles also include the findings of
studies carried out in the countries in question regarding the process quality of
preschool education institutions.
Concepts contained in preschool curricula or preschool education programmes
It is evident from the articles that new preschool education curricula or
programmes have been developed in each of the countries in question since their
attainment of independence.
In BiH, write Dženeta Camović, Jasmina Bećirović-Karabegović and
Hašima Ćurak, the fundamental principles and aims of preschool education are
defined in the Framework Law on Preschool Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Okvirni zakon... 2007) and the Common Core of Integrated Development Programmes for Work in Preschool Institutions (Sporazum o zajedničkoj jezgri … 2009,
hereinafter: Common Core). These are the two documents that set the framework
for designing preschool education programmes in the country’s various entities
and cantons. The Common Core (2009) serves as a basis for the design of preschool
education programmes in all public and private preschool education institutions. At
the same time, it is the institutions themselves that plan and implement the content
of their educational work in accordance with the specific needs of the institution
and the local community. Under the Common Core (2009), preschool education
programmes in BiH are structured in four areas of children’s development: physical
development; socio-emotional and personality development; cognitive development
and language skills; development of communication and creativity. Children’s
development and learning outcomes are defined each year for all areas of development and for every year of a child’s age. The authors point out that because of the
lack of uniformity in the planning and implementation of educational work in the
country, there is a need to develop a framework national curriculum that clearly
defines the role of teachers in children’s development and learning and sets out
the principles of planning educational work and the relationship between kindergartens and parents. They also emphasise that BiH needs to formulate common
guidelines for teachers to follow in the implementation of educational practice that is
focused on the achievement and monitoring of children’s development and learning
outcomes.

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In Montenegro we have been seeing conceptual shifts in the design of preschool
education programmes ever since independence. Tatjana L. Novović points out
that for a few years after independence, the country continued to implement an
preschool education programme based on a combination of a learning goals based
strategy and a subject based strategy for planning educational work. Between
2004 and 2010 a single Preschool education Activity Areas Programme was implemented for all children from the end of parental leave until school entry, based
on the “open curriculum” paradigm. This was designed to place the child at the
centre of the education process. The programme defined the general objectives of
preschool education and emphasised the fluidity, flexibility, dynamism and multidimensionality of the educational process, building on the requirement for constant
adaptation of the educational process to the children themselves. After six years of
implementation, this programme was modified because preschool teachers felt that
the existing programme was too demanding and incompatible with their previous
experience, knowledge and training. New preschool education programmes were
designed and adopted, and subsequently operationalised in several primary and
special programmes. The primary programmes include, for example, the Activity
Area – English Language programme (Područje aktivnosti – engleski jezik 2017),
while the special programmes include Learning for Entrepreneurship as part of
the preschool education activity area for children aged 3–6 (Preduzetničko učenje
… 2016) and Education for Sustainable Development as part of the preschool education activity area for children aged 3–6 (Obrazovanje za održivi razvoj ... 2015).
The latter are implemented in the context of primary programmes for children aged
3–6. It seems that with these two programmes Montenegro has introduced to its
preschool education system a set of contents relating to knowledge, skills, views
and values that respond to lifelong learning and labour market needs and follow
the orientations discussed in the first part of this article.
Croatia, write Jasminka Zloković and Diana Nenadić-Bilan, has adopted
the concept of the open curriculum. The National Curriculum of Early Childhood
Education and Care (Nacionalni kurikulum … 2014, hereinafter: National Curriculum) emphasises the importance of initiative and children’s activities and defines
the principles and goals of preschool education. Under this document, educational
work is based on respecting the abilities, needs and interests of children, on respecting
the suggestions and initiatives of the children themselves, on their participation,
etc., so the organisation of the educational process, note the authors, is flexible and
adapted to the needs and interests of children.
The document highlights the two goals of preschool education: ensuring
children’s well-being and overall development, education and learning, and developing their competences. It promotes eight key competences that are developed by
preschool education institutions, including learning to learn and sense of initiative
and entrepreneurship, which, as already noted, are among the key competences
required by the global labour market.
In 2016 Croatia amended the National Curriculum (2014) so that in the year
before school entry three hours a day are dedicated to preparing children for school,

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a solution which in the authors’ opinion does not lead to the “schoolification” of
preschool education.
At the time of preparation of this thematic issue, Serbia is in the process
of adopting new programmatic solutions for preschool education that reflect an
entirely different conception of the field. For this reason the article by Dragana
Pavlović Breneselović and Živka Krnjaja differs slightly from the other articles in terms of the methodology employed. A final report on the project in which
the Starting Points of the Preschool Education Programme (Osnove programa …
2018; hereinafter: Starting Points) were formulated and piloted is currently being
drawn up, and the Starting Points (2018) are awaiting approval by the competent
ministry.28 This being the case, we agree with the authors, who were also the experts responsible for the project, that they would present the essential features
of the new programme and only touch briefly on the programmatic solutions and
systemic quality assurance solutions currently in use insofar as they judge this
to be necessary for understanding of the proposed conceptual changes. The new
programme (unlike the preschool education programmes currently in force in Slovenia – for more on this see Krnjaja and Pavlović Breneselović 2017) is conceived
openly: it defines theoretical and value-based starting points that establish the
figure of the child, understanding of how children learn and the role of adults in
children’s learning. The design of the programme emphasises the importance of the
environment in which the educational process takes place and the importance of
a dynamic educational process in which the child plays an active part. It proceeds
from the assumption that preschool education in the preschool environment is important for children because of the effects it has on their learning, and not because
of “expected” outcomes that are in line with predetermined norms.
Mojca Kovač Šebart and Andreja Hočevar analyse the Preschool curriculum
(Kurikulum za... 1999) in Slovenia. It is based on a learning goals and process development strategy of curriculum planning – since the devisers of solutions in Slovenia
wanted to avoid precisely defined contents set out in education programmes and
clearly oriented towards the child’s cognitive development and the mastery of “academic” skills – something that was leading to the “schoolification” of kindergartens.
They also wished to avoid the weaknesses inherent in an open curriculum. For this
reason they decided to combine two curriculum planning strategies, as a safeguard
against the conceptual weaknesses of each individual strategy. The document sets
out the general goals and principles of preschool education, which orient teachers
towards the ongoing formulation of operational goals, in which they take into
account children’s interests and needs. Curriculum planning thus focuses on the
process and not on the effect, which concerns the realisation of precisely set and
operationalised curriculum objectives in the form of children’s learning outcomes
or achievements in the educational process. In this way, Slovenia should avoid the
danger of preschool education provision in kindergartens focusing too much on
28
The draft Starting Points (2018) came about as a collaboration between the Institute of Pedagogy
and Andragogy at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Arts, Serbia’s Ministry of Education, Science
and Technological Development, the Institute for the Improvement of Education (ZUOV), UNICEF
and practitioners from three kindergartens in which the draft programme was piloted.

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preparing children for school, and also the danger that, as a result of the openness
of curriculum content and goals, preschool education provision in kindergartens
might become ill-considered, poorly planned and poorly implemented, and dependent
on the abilities of the individual teacher, which is unfair to the children enrolled
in different classes of public kindergartens around the country.
Quality assurance in preschool education in the countries of the former Yugoslavia
BiH established the Agency for Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education
in 2007. Quality assurance in preschool education was entrusted to this Agency,
which proceeded to formulate Quality Standards for the Work of Preschool Teachers,
Educators and Head Teachers in Preschool Education (Standardi kvalitete …
2011). This document includes quality indicators grouped into thematic units and
aids for external evaluation and self-evaluation, where the latter takes place via
self-reflection on the part of preschool teachers and documentation of the pedagogical process. It also defines indicators regarding the process level of quality in
kindergartens and emphasises the importance of focusing the educational process
on the child, who constructs and develops knowledge and understanding through
active participation in the educational process (via direct learning experiences and
spontaneous learning rather than through teaching by the teacher). The findings
of monitoring of preschool education institutions do not indicate, the authors point
out, that a perceptible shift has occurred in programmes and in practice from the
traditional emphasis on teaching to active cooperation and spontaneous learning
on the part of children.
Quality assurance in preschool education is prescribed by law in Montenegro,
but the implementation of external and internal evaluations of quality is regulated
by special rules focusing on schools, while kindergartens are entirely neglected: the
provisions do not establish a difference between kindergartens and schools which
the process of assuring the quality of the preschool education is supposed to follow.
The quality assurance model is prescribed by a document called Methodology of External Evaluation of Education and Care in Educational Institutions (Metodologija
… 2010), prepared by experts from the Institute of Education. Assuring quality in
preschool education institutions takes place in the fields of learning and teaching and
students’ (children’s) achievements, where there are only two quality indicators in
the latter field (child’s development and child’s creativity), whereas there are seven
indicators for the school. Inspectors from the Institute of Education rank them on
a scale ranging from very successful to unsuccessful. Self-evaluation of preschool
education institutions is conceived in a similar way: 108 quality indicators have
been formulated, which are the same for kindergartens and schools.
Teachers/preschool teachers have at their disposal a questionnaire for assessment of different fields of learning, a form for self-evaluation of the institution and
a form for formulation of an action plan for the development of educational work.
Preschool teachers, met the author, self-evaluate educational work in kindergartens
and plan improvements by continuously monitoring and assessing their work with

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the help of various tools (questionnaires for parents, checklists, narrative and
anecdotal accounts, protocols for observing the educational process, video reports,
etc.) and also through analysis of pedagogical documentation and work diaries.
The author states that a conflict exists in Montenegro between the paradigmatic
concepts contained in preschool education programmes and their implementation.
She warns that preschool education needs an independent quality assurance model.
In Croatia external and internal evaluation of the quality of preschool education institutions is established at the systemic level. Common indicators have been
formulated, while at the same time every preschool education institution formulates
its own quality indicators. External evaluation is conducted by the National Centre
for the External Evaluation of Education (Nacionalni centar za vanjsko vrednovanje
obrazovanja) while self-evaluation takes place in institutions in accordance with
a methodology published in two manuals. Process quality is identified through
self-evaluation of the educational process and implementation of the curriculum.
After completing self-evaluation, every institution also prepares the development
plan. Authors Jasminka Zloković and Diana Nenadić-Bilan consider the preschool
education quality assurance model implemented in Croatia to be adequate from
the professional point of view.
In contrast to the other countries covered in this issue, the authors of the
article on Serbia reject the quantitative measurement of quality of preschool education and argue in favour of the need for collaborative evaluation. This concept
is in line with the theoretical reflection is contained in the Starting Points (Osnove programa … 2018). Everyone involved with the educational process in a
kindergarten takes part in the evaluation of quality: teachers, children, parents,
the local community, the competent ministry and public institutions in the field
of education and care. The authors draw attention to the importance of dialogue
among all stakeholders on what is taking place in the educational process, while the
assessment of the quality of the process is established as a reflection on the entire
context in which preschool education takes place, and in relation to the key values
which kindergartens should be following on the basis of the adopted Starting Points
(Osnove programa … 2018). They emphasise that in order to build the quality of
preschool education, the common establishment of meanings among the various
participants in the educational process is essential, as is democratic cooperation
among them, since quality is a concept that is subjective and plural, that embraces
multiple perspectives and that is informed by values, and is therefore dependent
on the given context.
The concept of preschool education quality assurance presented in the article by the authors differs completely from the model currently in use in Serbia.
The latter is prescribed by means of rules and is based on external evaluation
and self-evaluation, where standards and quality indicators are the same for both
types of evaluation. The authors underlined that self-evaluation conceived in this
way leads to an adaptation of educational practice to existing norms and does not
allow teachers to reflect on educational work, while research findings show that
a majority of teachers consider external evaluation to be a merely formal process
that does not lead to an improvement of educational practice.

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In Slovenia the implementation of self-evaluation in kindergartens has since
2019 prescribed by the Act Amending the Organisation and Financing of Education Act (Zakon o organizaciji … 2008), but there is no legally prescribed model
of self-evaluation by which kindergartens are supposed to assure quality. The
authors of the text present the model of quality assurance for kindergartens that
was formulated between 2000 and 2002 and tested between 2003 and 2005. This
model was based on precise knowledge of the concept written into the Preschool
curriculum (Kurikulum za … 1999). Political decision-makers did not support its
further development and introduction in kindergartens and instead directed funding
towards the development of a new “common model” of quality assessment for the
entire education and care vertical. As a result – just as in Montenegro – there is no
separate quality assurance model in place for kindergartens that would tie quality
assurance to the specific factors by which these institutions are distinguished from
schools. A central place in the common model of self-evaluation is reserved for the
area of learning and teaching and children’s achievements, which is not consistent
with the concept contained in the applicable Preschool curriculum (ibid.). At the
time of writing, standards and quality indicators are also being developed for the
area learning and teaching (sub-areas: students’ achievements or children’s development and learning) in kindergartens. They have not yet been published, even
though the quality model should have been gradually introduced to kindergartens
beginning in September 2018. On the basis of the terminology in the definitions
and solutions that we find in accessible documents relating to the common model
of quality assurance, it appears that we are dealing with a structural shift at the
level of solutions that follows the international trends described an introductory
part of this text.
Conclusion
We find that in all the countries concerned, programmatic or curriculum documents exist at the national level, and that educational work in kindergartens or
preschool institutions takes place in accordance with these documents. They are
conceived differently: they follow open curriculum solutions in Croatia and, for a
certain brief period, in Montenegro; in Serbia, too, the proposed new programme
is conceived in this way; the programme is currently used in Montenegro, BiH and
Serbia are more structured. Slovenia has opted for a middle path: the Preschool
curriculum (Kurikulum za … 1999) is a partially structured document. As regards
some of the tendencies in preschool education that we analysed in the first part of the
text, these are slowly gaining a substantive place in preschool education curricula or
programmes. The skills or competences demanded by the labour market are already
explicitly included in the preschool education programme in Montenegro and in the
curriculum in Croatia, while the preparation of preschool children for school is part
of the preschool education systems in BiH, Montenegro and Serbia and included in
the curriculum in Croatia. In all the countries covered, formerly prescribed quality
assurance mechanisms exist. Quality assurance models have been developed for

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preschool education and standards or indicators of quality in preschool education
have been defined. In Montenegro, as apparently also in Slovenia, the quality
assurance model is conceived for schools (rather than for preschool institutions).
In both BiH and Montenegro, preschool education quality indicators are defined
by children’s outcomes or achievements in individual areas of development and
learning. As presented by the authors in this issue, Croatia and Serbia (the latter
in draft documents) do not follow the logic of preschool education quality assurance
that is primarily interested in effectiveness at the level of children’s outcomes or
achievements and learning outcomes in further schooling, but instead are focused
above all on the “establishment of common meanings” among all participants in
the educational process with regard to how to “build” a high-quality preschool education institution that will create conditions for children’s well-being, learning and
development.
Two thematic issues of Sodobna pedagogika (the present issue and issue
number 3 in 2017) have now been dedicated to an analysis that offers readers a
fairly clear picture of current developments in the preschool education field in the
states of the former Yugoslavia. The authors of the articles in these two issues have
analysed the structural and process quality of kindergartens or preschool education
institutions in these countries and identified trends in preschool education in this
part of Europe. In doing so, we have established an intensive and fruitful professional collaboration among the authors involved, which will certainly not end with
the articles contained in this issue.
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