Transcript What Data? For What Purpose? Which Data for International Comparison? Thoughts from Finland OECD Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Network 21 June 2010 T 1 Tarja.

What Data? For What Purpose? Which Data for
International Comparison?
Thoughts from Finland
OECD Early Childhood Education
and Care (ECEC) Network
21 June 2010
T
1 Tarja Kahiluoto
The reasons (for collecting data)
It is important to understand for what purpose we are
collecting the data - policy making!
 What is the added value obtained
 The data collected should be relevant for various
purposes
 Clear explanation of the reason for collecting data
2 Tarja Kahiluoto
Aspects (of collecting data)
 The terms/concepts have to be clear, especially when
collecting data for international comparisons.
 Financing of what services? Preschool, day care , fulltime, part-time etc.
 Who will the data serve?
 The data should be:
– Comparable
– Reliable
– Easily available, for instance from national statistics
• The collected data must be analysed and easily
accessible, not only in OLIS
3 Tarja Kahiluoto
A proposition of issues, 1
 Funding of ECEC services for children 0 to school-age,
excluding parental leaves.
 All different services which these cover should be clarified
(preschool, day care, home care, private and public etc. )
 The % of GDP of these services.
 What is the financing model, that is how are the costs covered
and by whom? Is it the state, the local government, the parents,
some other and how many percentage do they each cover of the
costs?
 The running costs of pre-school education?
 The running costs of a full-time place in day care per child per
month (and this separately for children under 3 and over 3 years
old if possible).
 The running costs of a part-time place in day care per child per
month (and this separately for children under 3 and over 3 years
old if possible).
4 Tarja Kahiluoto
A proposition of issues, 2
 Is preschool free, from what age and how many hours /year?
 What are the client fees in day care? Are they regulated? Is day
care free of cost for low-income families?
 Average day care costs to parents: How many percentage do the
client fees cover of the costs of day care?
 Do countries have subsidies/allowances directed to families to
arrange private care or to support families taking care of their
children themselves (for instance home care allowance and
private care allowance in Finland)?
It would be interesting to analyze what types of financial systems produce
good quality ECEC and promote equity/equality.
5 Tarja Kahiluoto