Measuring and Improving Quality in Early Childhood Environments

ISSA, UNICEF, UNESCO, and the Bernard van Leer Foundation, in partnership with the World Bank and the Brookings Institution, joined forces to call attention to the importance of measuring and improving quality in early childhood environments. An international consultation was convened in Leiden, the Netherlands in September 2014, bringing together early childhood experts and stakeholders representing different regions of the world, who have experience in the measurement and improvement of quality of early years services. The meeting aimed to identify points of consensus in measuring quality and future directions for increasing the strength, innovation and cultural applicability of quality measurement.

This publication is a brief summary of the consensus made between the participating actors in how to measure quality in early childhood environments and what to measure. The participants also expressed an interest in forming a global network on quality and to that end they provided a list of recommendations for the goals of such a group.