This volume, produced by the Department of Children and Childcare at the German Youth Institute in Munich provides an overview of diverse systems for monitoring ECEC regimes on an international scale. Country examples apply multiple lenses to this evolving and complex issue; including the incorporation of children's and staff perspectives, process-oriented approaches and more. Analysis from an educational governance perspective is a common thread in all.
Foreword
In many countries, quality regulation and assurance in early childhood education and care (ECEC) are challenging matters that widely dominate current debates. Within the past years, approaches to quality regulation and assurance have been put into practice in different ways. This volume provides a broad insight into diverse systems of monitoring ECEC quality. Such a bundling and analysis of international systems and their approaches does not yet exist in this form. The International Center Early Childhood Education and Care (ICEC) has taken that as an occasion to elaborate this volume at hand. To spread the compiled information internationally, the volume is published in German1 and English.
A lot of “creative minds” and “busy hands” were involved in the development and completion of this international volume. At this point, we explicitly would like to thank all authors for their commitment, their patience and the very constructive and inspiring cooperation. With their contributions, they offer a sound insight into the structure of the ECEC systems in their countries as well as the monitoring systems established there. Furthermore, we would like to sincerely thank Prof. Dr. Sybille Stöbe-Blossey from the University of Duisburg-Essen for her critical review of the manuscript and her valuable comments.
Moreover, we would like to thank a number of colleagues at the German Youth Institute: Birgit Riedel for her critical feedback and helpful hints for our chapters; Katharina Taumberger for supporting us generously with her great language competences; Sylvie Ganzevoort for the very important organizational support of the whole publishing process, and last but not least we thank David Macavei and Maria Zeller for their editorial work to finalise the document.
Munich, June 2017
Nicole Klinkhammer
Britta Schäfer
Dana Harring