After the publication of the comparative report, Starting Strong II,
responsibility for the Starting Strong project was passed by the
Directorate for Education at the OECD to Kind en Gezin [1],
the government agency responsible for child care in Flanders. At the
request of several countries that had taken part in the reviews, the
project was transformed into a specialised inter-country network, called
the OECD Starting Strong Network.
The Network has received a mandate from the OECD Committee for Education Policy to achieve the following goals:
- To bring together senior administrators from the national
ministries in charge of children's services in the member countries;
- To organise two workshops annually for country administrators
on (emerging) topics important for policy in the early childhood field;
- To maintain the knowledge base established by the OECD reviews -
and, in particular, to collect accurate statistical information on the
various countries participating in the network - in co-operation with
the Indicators and Analysis Division at the OECD.