Two-year pre-primary education trial
Introduction
The purpose of the trial
- Strengthen equality in education and training
- To improve the quality and effectiveness of pre-primary education
- To clarify the continuities between early childhood education and pre-primary and primary education
- To clarify the service choices of families
- To obtain information on the impact of two years of pre-primary education on children's development and learning conditions, social skills and healthy self-esteem
Schedule and implementation of the trial
The Ministry of Education and Culture's trial ran from August 2021 to May 2024, meaning that the national trial will have ended at the end of May 2024.
In Vantaa, 26 day-care centres drawn by the Ministry of Education and Culture participated in the trial.
Children born in 2016 and 2017 were divided into trial and control groups. The children in the trial group attended two years of pre-primary education and the children in the control group attended one year of pre-primary education as usual. In Vantaa, about 1000 children have been in the trial group and about 4300 in the control group. These groups were set up by the Ministry of Education and Culture and Vantaa has had no influence on these decisions.
Follow-up study as part of the trial
The trial has been accompanied by a national research project to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the trial. The follow-up study will systematically and comprehensively assess, among other things, the following aspects.
- the achievement of the purpose of the two-year pre-primary education experiment
- the experiences of children, families and educational staff
- the impact of longer pre-school education on the development of children's learning skills
The follow-up study will continue in the autumn of 2024 for the 1st year of primary education.
Trial follow-up study and trial register
The trial is provided for by law and is part of a national survey (Ministry of Education and Culture). In the follow-up study, children have participated in assessments and carers and early childhood education staff have been interviewed. The results of individual child assessments and carer questionnaires are not reported in the follow-up study and respondents cannot otherwise be identified. Even if a child does not participate in the two-year pre-primary education programme at the trial site, information on your child is recorded in the register.
The trial follow-up study will include children from both the trial group and a control group.