Quality of early childhood education in Colombia: Results from a national study

• In Event: Monitoring for quality improvement in early childhood care and education settings

Proposal

An extensive literature over the last decades show that early childhood education (ECE) matters for children’s development and has the potential to diminish inequalities associated with their socioeconomic origin. This evidence was recognized in the definition of the indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015). In particular, SDG 4 on learning and education and Target 4.2. focuses in ensuring that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and education. Achieving and tracking progress towards this target requires the application of contextualized and comprehensive assessments of quality at scale. However, there are scant data to date on the quality of learning environments in low and middle-income countries. In Colombia, the Ministry of National Education developed a model based on the application of an adapted version of MELQO to monitor the human, material and social conditions necessary in ECE to promote the integral development of children between 0 and 6 years old. This study describes the first application of this model and illustrates how some of the results are being used to inform policy and program options in the country.

The IMCEIC, the adaptation of the Measure of Early Learning Environments (MELE) for Colombia, was used to collect information on structural and process quality through a classroom observation guide, and questionnaires for the coordinator, teachers and parents. Children’s logical-mathematical reasoning, language, executive functions and socioemotional development were assessed using the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA, Save the Children). Data for this study comes from a nationally representative sample of 312 public early childhood centers in Colombia located in 64 municipalities across 28 departments. Within each center a classroom of children aged 3 to 4 years and a classroom of children aged 4 to 5 years were randomly selected for a total of 597 classrooms. From these classrooms, 3,687 children were randomly selected.

Multilevel regression models (for center, classroom and child, with center and classroom random effects) were estimated in which structural and process quality were included as predictors of children’s development and some characteristics of children and their families were included as control variables. Results showed that both structural and process quality are associated with children’s logical, language, motor, social skills and executive functions. The results show that efforts of the Colombian national ECE policy to provide comprehensive care are being met and that institutional efforts should focus in promoting the quality of interactions between teachers, children and the environment, as well as relationships with families. Implications of these results are discussed in relation to policy efforts to secure quality of early childhood education in Colombia. In particular, the need to incorporate the technical guidelines of the Ministry of Education to teacher’s pre- and in-service education, promote research capacity to use evidence to secure data-driven policy strategies, and institutionalize the quality measurement as a tool for monitoring the policy and supporting evidence-based decisions.

Authors

• Carolina Maldonado, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

• Catalina Rey, Universidad de Los Andes

• Eduardo Escallón, Universidad de Los Andes

• Ana María Nieto, Consultant

• Angy Mateus, Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar (ICBF)

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University

• Liliana A. Ponguta, Yale University

• Sharon Lynn Kagan, Teachers College, Columbia University