After the publication of the comparative report, Starting Strong II,
responsibility for the Starting Strong project was passed by the
Directorate for Education at the OECD to Kind en Gezin,
the government agency responsible for child care in Flanders. At the
request of several countries that had taken part in the reviews, the
project was transformed into a specialised inter-country network, called
the OECD Starting Strong Network.
The Network has received a mandate from the OECD Committee for Education Policy to achieve the following goals:
- To bring together senior administrators from the national
ministries in charge of children's services in the member countries;
- To organise two workshops annually for country administrators
on (emerging) topics important for policy in the early childhood field;
- To maintain the knowledge base established by the OECD reviews -
and, in particular, to collect accurate statistical information on the
various countries participating in the network - in co-operation with
the Indicators and Analysis Division at the OECD.