Meta-analyse: de relatie tussen opleidingsniveau van VVE-leerkrachten en kwaliteit van de omgeving voor het kind

Voor- en vroegschoolse educatie (VVE) richt zich op onderwijs aan jonge kinderen. Vaak met als doel om onderwijsachterstanden te voorkomen. In Nederland lijken de effecten van vooralsnog gering. In andere landen zijn echter wel positieve effecten van VVE gedocumenteerd. Een zojuist verschenen meta-analyse onderzocht de relatie tussen opleidingsniveau van de leidsters en leerkrachten betrokken bij VVE enerzijds en de kwaliteit VVE-omgeving voor het kind. Elementen die de kwaliteit van die omgeving bepalen zijn onder andere: taalgebruik gericht op het jonge kind, de interactie met het jonge kind, de inrichting van het dagprogramma enzovoorts. De meta-analyse vond, op basis van 49 studies, een positieve samenhang tussen opleidingsniveau van VVE leidsters en -leerkrachten en kwaliteit van de omgeving voor het kind. Hieronder het abstract.

“Poor-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) can be detrimental to the development of children, as it may lead to poor social, emotional, educational, health, economic, and behavioral outcomes. A lack of consensus, however, regarding the strength of the relationship between teacher qualification and the quality of the ECEC environment makes it difficult to identify strategies that could enhance developmental and educational outcomes. This meta-analytic review examines evidence on the correlation between teacher qualifications and the quality of ECEC environments. Results show that higher teacher qualifications are significantly correlated with higher quality ECEC environments. Specifically, the education level of teachers or caregivers is positively correlated to overall ECEC qualities, as well as subscale ratings including program structure, language, and reasoning.”

De implicaties van de bevindingen zijn volgens de auteurs onder andere dat het de moeite waard kan zijn in het verder investeren in de opleiding van leerkrachten werkzaam in de VVE:

“To conclude, the results from this study provide evidence of the existence of a positive correlation between teacher education and classroom quality, as measured by ERS. From a policy perspective, these results highlight that additional research may likely support the need to enhance the level of education of teachers within the early childhood education sector. This could be achieved by encouraging government to invest in enhanced training for staff. This would potentially transform the sector whereby additional regulation may create minimal educational requirements for lead teachers, or payment of higher subsidies to centers with more qualified staff, or by providing larger subsidies to those working within the sector to encourage them to undertake further education. An alternative approach could be to require early childhood education centers to clearly state the qualifications of staff on publicly available documents so that parents and care-givers can make informed decisions about the quality of the service offered by an individual center.”