EXCERPTS:
A survey on early childhood education aimed at parents is about to break previous partaker records. On Sunday 9,800 mothers or fathers had filled out the Vaikuta varhaiskasvatukseen online survey.
The survey of the Ministry of Culture and Education was opened in mid-December. It concerns the amendment of the 40-year-old legislation on daycare centres.
According to Counselor Kirsi Alila the popularity of the survey reflects the parents' willingness to influence the content of early childhood education and have their opinions heard.
Alila states that parents have been thankful for early childhood education. They have, however, also had many thoughts on developing the operation. The preliminary results of the survey will be examined in late February.
In addition to parents also children in daycare centres around Finland have been consulted. According to Alila children have taken photographs of nice and the not-so-nice places of daycare centres.
The goal of the amendment is to "secure the high quality of early childhood education". Just the words "high quality" have sparked a lot of discussion in the media. Measuring quality is especially difficult when dealing with children.
The new law concerns almost everything relating to early childhood education from customer payments to the competence requirements of teachers.
In 2012 about 230,000 took part in Finnish daycare. The figure corresponds to approximately 63 per cent of children aged 1-6.
-reprinted from the Helsinki Times