Outcomes of Early Childhood Education: Do we know,

The topic of my address, ‘Outcomes of early childhood education’,1 fits well with the conference theme, ‘Policies, research and practice to improve student outcomes’, particularly when considered in the New Zealand context. The history of early childhood education in this country as a non-compulsory, voluntary sector, ensured that student outcomes have not been a major focus of early childhood programmes. Historically, programmes were child-centred and developmentally-oriented rather than driven by predetermined objectives or an outcomes focus. Notwithstanding, an interest in outcomes has evolved, as attested by the Ministry of Education’s recent Statements of Intent, and its commissioning of the literature review, Outcomes of early childhood education, prepared by NZCER (Mitchell, Wylie & Carr, 2008). My reading of this substantial review led me to pose three questions in my subheading with regard to the outcomes of early childhood education in New Zealand, namely: Do we know? The evidence question Can we tell? The methodology question Does it matter? The significance question My answers to these questions also encapsulate the major conference theme ‘Education in change’. Early childhood education in this country can be viewed as a case study of the interface of policy, research and practice in a context of change, following the reorganisation of early childhood education and care provisions as an integrated system in the late 1980s. On this basis my analysis is consistent with the view of several commentators that the trajectories of early childhood education following the 1980s reports, Education to be more (Department of Education, 1988), and Before five (Department of Education, 1988) illustrate tensions between the opposing ideologies of economic rationalism and education for the rights of the child (Loveridge & McLachlan, 2008); and between the discourses of quality and diversity and increasing regulation and accountability (Scrivens, 2002). How the early childhood sector has negotiated these on-going tensions is a fascinating story in its own right (See Keesing