Kvalitet og kvantitet

The Government White Paper on day care provision presented in December 1999 announced a three-year program to improve quality. Starting in 2001, all Norwegian day care centres were to establish tools and systems designed to further develop and safeguard the quality of day care centres. The program was to be finalised by 2003. A survey conducted at the end of the period showed that only one in five managers felt that their day care centre had attained the goals. The program to improve quality coincided with an increasing focus on strong price reductions in child care services and a commitment to make day care centres available to all families who wanted this type of child care. Since 2003, there has been a vast expansion in child care coverage rates in Norway. At the end of 2003, 205 000 children were enrolled in day care centres. By January 2008 about 265 000 children were enrolled. The biggest increase was seen for children below three, and during 2008 almost 40 000 one-year olds were enrolled in day care centres. We have compared the results from 2004 and 2008 in order to explore whether this expansion has happened at the expense of quality. On average, there are more children per day care centre in 2008 compared to 2004. This is especially true for the new centres that started up after 2004, but also the older ones have expanded. Day care centre managers are typically stable employees. More than half had managed the same day care centre for more than five years, and almost 40 percent had been in the same position for more than eight years. Since 2004 there has been a small increase in turnover of employees. In 2004, half of the day care centres reported that none of their employees had left their position within the last 6 months, while in 2008 this was reduced to 40 percent. As in 2004, the small day care centres reported the lowest turn over rates. A smaller portion of those who were educated as pre-school teachers had ended their position compared with those without such education. Ninety percent of the managers are women, and 92 percent are educated pre-school teachers. Approximately two percent have additional education. Three percent of the day care centres have managers who do not meet the educational requirement. In 14 percent of the child care centres there is at least one employee who is undertaking education to become a preschool teacher. In every fourth day care centre there is more than one preschool teacher per unit. In 16 percent of the day care centres there are at least one male pre-school teacher, and 34 percent of the day care centres had at least one male assistant. The number of day care centres with at least one male employee has increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 51 percent in 2008. The percentage of educated preschool teachers in day care centres varies a lot. In one in four day care centres 27 percent, or fewer, of the staff had preschool teacher education. In another fourth of the day care centres 43 percent, or more, were educated preschool teachers. Compared to 2004 there has not been any decrease in the proportion of preschool teachers. The proportion of preschool teachers has increased more in the private day care centres than in municipal day care centres. Nine out of ten day care centres have annual appraisal talks with their staff. Eight out of ten employ internal vocational training schemes for their staff, and more than half of the day care centres have a separate budget for such training. In this area there has been a small increase since the last evaluation in 2004. The size of the day care centre is the most decisive factor determining whether all three measures to improve the staff are set. Norwegian day care centres operate within the framework of a national curriculum (Rammeplanen). Since last survey in 2004 the number of subjects to be covered according to the national curriculum havebeen expanded from five to seven. In 2008 most day care centres emphasised the area "Communication, language and texts". Emphasis on this subject has increased steadily since 2002. Similar to what has been reported in earlier periods there was least interest for the area "Ethics, religion and philosophy". In 2008 fewer day care centres work with all areas compared to 2004, but we observed a tendency that bigger private day care centres work with more areas. The vast majority of day care centres have established formal routines for informing parents and new employees. This applies above all to what we define as «start-up information». Since 2004 the day care centres have increased their formal routines for writing down information to and from care givers. At least eight out of ten day care centres have routine parent-staff conversations, parent-staff meetings and liaison committee meetings twice a year. More day care centres employ user surveys, but not as frequent as in 2004. The existence of formal information routines depends heavily on a day care centre's size, bigger centres have more formal routines. Children's well-being and development are commonly evaluated in a traditional manner, i.e. by observation, followed by educational documentation. About half of the day care centres make little or no use of methods such as systematic conversations or interviews with children. There is however a small increase in the use of child interviews. The number of day care centres where children participate in assessment work has increased since 2002, in 2008 59 percent of the day care centres involved children in the assessment work. Children are also being drawn more and more into the process of planning the day care centre's activities, and children are now participating more than their parents in such planning. Even though participation has increased considerably there are still a high number of day care centres where there is little or no child or parental participation. The general opinion among managers is that the physical environment such as buildings and outdoor areas are satisfactory and suitably adapted for all the children in the day care centre. In 2002 every third day care centre achieved top score on this measure. In 2008 half of the day care centres did the same. This is especially true for the biggest and newest day care centres. In half of the day care centres the owners have made plans for training or post-qualifying education facilities for their staff, and two out of three are already providing such training. Municipal day care centres are still ahead of their private counterparts both in terms of planning and providing training and post-qualifying education facilities for their staff. As regards the extent of contact and collaboration between the individual day care centre and the municipality in its role as local day care centre authority, no positive change can be seen from 2002 to 2008. The contact between them is slightly lower than in earlier surveys, and we find this problematic as contact is decisive for the municipal authority in order to have control. Our survey for 2008 revealed that the municipal authority have more intensive contact with municipal day care centres than with private day care centres, which makes us question their equal treatment. Compared to 2004 there are slightly more managers who report that bullying never occurs in their day care centre in 2008. Still the majority of day care centre managers report instances of bullying during last year, but at the same time they state that this happens only very rarely. The most common method to reduce bullying is the programme entitled «You and I and the two of us», which is used by half of the day care centres. The program that has increased most since 2004 is «Step by step», this program is now used in one third of theday care centres. The measures and routines for preparing the transition between day care centres and schools have been considerably improved since last survey. Such preparations for five-year olds are now established in almost every day care centre. However, it is problematic that more measures are in place in municipal day care centres than in private day care centres. It is most common to organize day care centres in units. 80 percent of the day care centres are organised in this way, while 13 percent are not divided into units. It is most common to have units divided by age. 60 percent of the day care centres have established formal routines for assessing all the children's language development, while a third has no regular routine for doing this. Those without formal routines report they assess only children who appear to have special needs in this area. 56 percent of the day care centres have at least one child with reduced functional ability. Almost all of these get additional support in order to employ extra staff. 87 percent have established formal contact with other municipal authorities to be able to give the child maximum support. As in the two earlier surveys the day care centre managers are generally satisfied with their framework conditions. We could also find that private day care managers are more satisfied with the conditions in which they operate than the managers of municipal day care centres. Most managers state that the localities are suitable for the children and for the purpose to which they are used. This opinion is especially strong among managers of new day care centres, for big day care centres, and is even more common in private than in municipal day care centres. A joint comparison of 30 different quality indicators in 2004 and 2008 indicate that day care centres in 2008 on average get a higher score than in 2004