Starting Strong: An Exercise in International Learning

Abstract

Starting Strong, a comparative review of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in 20 countries organised by OECD, is an important study. It provides a wealth of documentation, findings and conclusions. The article provides some background to the review, highlighting its broad, holistic, rights-based approach. It overviews some of the reviews main findings, including the widespread policy trends it identifies, as well as eight major policy conclusions and ten areas of policy option that ‘major ECEC stakeholders’ are recommended to consider. The article then offers the author’s own perspective on why the review is so important; in particular, while offering valuable pointers to what works, i.e. technical issues, it also places in the public arena some of the most important political and ethical issues with which the development of ECEC confronts stakeholders. Five of these issues are discussed: the relationship between ECEC and school; national responsibility, decentralisation and democracy; the status, conditions and structure of the workforce; the question of paradigm; and pedagogical approaches. The article concludes by considering what might happen next. How do we take the work forward? How do we use this rich cross-national material? Suggestions made include: using the documentation from the review to deepen critical reflection on policy, provision and practice; developing exchange and dialogue between people and organisations in different countries, through which to learn with others about issues of common interest and concern; and using the method developed for doing Starting Strong to undertake reviews of ECEC on a regular basis.