The positive benefits of early childhood education directly relate to and depend upon high-quality structural and process elements, such as funding and parental involvement.

The Inclusive Early Childhood Education (IECE) project found that although there are cultural and societal differences in the perspectives on quality in early childhood education, the dimensions of high-quality probably share enough features to assert that the general dimensions of high-quality are universal.

Early childhood education programme evaluations and quality indicators focus on general structural elements: funding, standards, safety, staff-child ratios, enrolment rate, indoor/outdoor space, staff qualification levels, and so on. They also focus on general process elements, like the pedagogical approach and parental involvement, rather than on outcomes such as children’s participation, well-being, functioning and everyday life learning in pre-school.

Project findings and recommendations from the Inclusive Early Childhood Education project can be found in a series of outputs.

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