Starting strong III: a quality toolbox for early childhood education and care

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) can bring a wide range of benefits - for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on "quality". Expanding access to services without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or long-term productivity benefits for society. This new publication focuses on quality issues: it aims to define quality and outlines five policy levers that can enhance it in ECEC. In addition, it provides busy policy makers with practical tools such as research briefs, international comparisons, country examples, self-reflection sheets, etc. in order to successfully implement these policy levers. Contents: How to use the policy toolbox; Policy Lever 1: Setting out quality goals and regulations; Policy Lever 2: Designing and implementing curriculum and standards; Policy Lever 3: Improving workforce conditions, qualifications and training; Policy Lever 4: Engaging families and communities; Policy Lever 5: Advancing data collection, research and monitoring