There are 24 institutions that joined together in an inter-institutional roundtable and worked for 6 months to develop a series of proposals and measures that seek to contribute to the improvement of the quality of early education processes in Chile.

On Monday 5 November, representatives of 24 civil society organisations related to early childhood education will meet with the Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education, María José Castro, to present proposals and concrete measures aimed at improving the quality of early childhood education.

The document contains recommendations in five key areas that directly affect the quality of early education processes: effective interactions; initial and continuous training of early childhood educators and technicians; pedagogical leadership; family involvement; and process evaluation. For each of these areas, a brief diagnosis and bibliographical discussion is presented, leading to concrete actions that could be implemented, some of them by the Ministry of Education, others by universities, professional institutes and technical training centres, and even by the educational establishments themselves, as appropriate.

Most countries, including Chile, have increased public spending to expand access to early education. However, as coverage increases, the central challenge for public policy is to find a balance in investment that improves structural aspects (m2 per pupil, number of pupils per teacher, among others), but also allows for progress in the quality of educational processes, which is ultimately what will define the formative and developmental experiences of children at an early age.

A few months ago, the Ministry was presented with the proposals of "The Initial Plan", which many of the organisations participating in this roundtable were part of, and which focused on access, quality and institutionalism. The document that we will present as a roundtable on this occasion focuses exclusively on the quality of early education processes. What we understand by quality education, how it is achieved, how it is measured, who are the actors involved, are some of the questions that this document answers with concrete proposals, complementing and deepening what was presented by El Plan Inicial to the Ministry of Education.

The "Mesa Interinstitucional de Calidad de los Procesos en Educación Inicial" was led by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, with the active participation of more than 20 civil society organisations: Acción Educar, Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo y Estimulación Psicosocial (CEDEP), Centro de Estudios Montessori, Centro de Estudios Primera Infancia (CEPI), Centro de Justicia Educacional, Comité para la Infancia y la Familia, Corporación Emprender, Desafío Levantemos Chile, Educación 2020, Educa UC, Elige Educar, Fundación CAP, Fundación Chile, Fundación CMPC, Harvard University, Hogar de Cristo, Fundación Aprendiz, World Organization for Early Childhood Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Protectora de la Infancia, Tu Clase Tu País, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Universidad Católica del Maule and Universidad de las Américas.

The document will be handed in on Monday 05 November at 12:30 p.m. at the offices of the Undersecretariat for Pre-school Education.

Accede al documento en este enlace https://fundacionoportunidad.cl/wp-content/uploads/mesa-interinstitucional-de-educacion-inicial.pdf

The Undersecretary for Pre-school Education, María José Castro, said after participating in the Learning Session that brought together kindergarten educators and technicians, management teams and Daem heads of the Improvement Network of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad's Un Buen Comienzo programme.

The activity brought together 13 communes, 60 schools and nearly 250 people around this Improvement Network that promotes actions aimed at the sustainability of good educational and leadership practices, as well as collaborative work between educational communities with a focus on the learning of children at the early childhood level.

"Children come first" is the government's motto for expressing its concern for early education, which was recalled by María José Castro, Undersecretary for Pre-school Education, who also recognised the Foundation's work in this area, "it is a great programme that works with communities, sponsors, directors, educators and assistants, so that the quality of learning comes directly to the classroom, through quality interactions, one of the programme's focuses".

With regard to this Improvement Network of the Good Start Programme and the results presented at the conference, the undersecretary pointed out that "we are certain that in education the best practices come from the learning communities, especially when there is accurate data that allows us to identify the difficulties and successful proposals and thus make the right decisions".

In this second Learning Session, successful experiences were shared between communes and schools, the results obtained in the first half of the year, in order to plan the second semester, all with a focus on sustaining the programme's strategies to generate quality learning.

The educator Mabel Leyton from the Amparo Rayo school in Quinta de Tilcoco, considers that these learning sessions "are important to interact with other educators by learning about the strengths and weaknesses of the network". Patricia Pérez, an educator who only learned about the programme this year at the Chimbarongo kindergarten, has a similar opinion: "It was a very intense but motivating day. The programme is incredible, it has very good results that are reflected in the children's learning".

The Fundación Educacional Oportunidad programme has been working for 7 years with schools in the VI region and 11 years in the metropolitan region, contributing to the improvement of the quality of early education, supporting school teams in the improvement of pedagogical and leadership practices so that children can achieve better socio-emotional and language development.

Since 2011, the Foundation has been working with the Continuous Improvement Methodology, which is based on "collaborative" work and the exchange of experiences between the schools that are part of the programme and the implementation of improvement cycles to test ideas (Plan, Do, Study and Adjust).

"I think it is a contribution, hopefully it will become state policy and all municipalities will be obliged to participate in this network, because at the moment it is voluntary. If we want to improve education in Chile, we must start with early education using the strategies of the Good Start programme," says Teresa Rojas, head of Daem in the commune of Codegua.

This year the programme is focused on providing tools for the sustainability of successful practices, as well as on strengthening this improvement network with a focus on early education, explains Marcela Marzolo, executive director of the Foundation, who also points out that "we are happy with this Learning Session that strengthens the work of the Improvement Network around early education. The communes that are part of this Network are tremendously committed to early education and generously share their achievements and challenges with their peers because they are convinced that the best way to advance quality in early education is to do it collaboratively".

This is the second and last session of the year for the continuous improvement work of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad's Un Buen Comienzo programme. During the rest of the year the schools will continue to meet by commune and peer-to-peer visits will take place to continue advancing quality.