Quality of Early Childhood Education and Care System in Croatia

Pitanje kvalitete predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja postalo je područjem povećanog zanimanja stručne i šire javnosti. S obzirom na neistraženost područja u svijetu i u Hrvatskoj mnogo je nepoznanica u tom području počevši od samog definiranja koncepta kvalitete predškolskih programa, preko načina mjerenja kvalitete pa do utvrđivanja posljedica koje visoka odnosno niska razina kvalitete donose djeci uključenoj u predškolske programe. Nadalje, u većini je dosadašnjih istraživanja kvaliteta predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja ispitivana iz perspektive stručnjaka, dok se u ovom radu naglasak stavlja na roditeljsku perspektivu. Cilj ovog istraživanja je ispitati razlike u strukturalnim i procesnim pokazateljima kvalitete usluga predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja te zadovoljstvu roditelja kvalitetom usluga predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja s obzirom na vrstu pružatelja usluga. Dobiveni rezultati pokazuju kako roditelji čija djeca pohađaju privatne jaslice/vrtiće iskazuju veće zadovoljstvo kvalitetom prostora i količinom aktivnosti koje se provode unutar redovnog programa koje pohađa njihovo dijete u odnosu na roditelje djece koja pohađaju javne jaslice/vrtiće, kao i pojedinim procesnim pokazateljima poput pažnje odgojitelja i kvalitete rada odgojitelja. Nadalje, u javnim jaslicama/vrtićima više je zaposlenih stručnih suradnika (pedagoga, psihologa, medicinskih sestara) u odnosu na privatne jaslice/vrtiće, dok roditelji djece koja pohađaju privatne jaslice/vrtiće plaćaju višu mjesečnu naknadu usluge.The quality of early childhood education and care has become an area of increased interest in professional community as well as in general public. Considering the lack of research in the world as well as in Croatia, much is unknown in this area - from the definition of the concept of the quality of early childhood education and care programs, to the approaches of measuring quality and determining the consequences that a high or low quality level may bring to the children who are enrolled in early childhood education and care programs. Furthermore, in most of the previous research the quality of early childhood education and care has been examined from experts` perspective, while in this paper focus is on parents` perspective. The goal of this study is to examine differences in structural and process indicators of quality of early childhood education and care programs and parents` satisfaction with the quality of early childhood and care programs considering the type of service providers. The parents whose children attend private nurseries/kindergartens show higher satisfaction with the quality of space and quantity of activates carried out within the regular program attended by their child, as well as with various process indicators such as the attention and work quality of educators, compared to parents of children attending public nurseries/kindergartens. Furthermore, the public nurseries/kindergartens employ more experts (educators, psychologists, nurses) compared to private kindergartens, and parents whose children attend private nurseries/kindergartens pay a higher monthly fee