Thursday presents OECD’s judgment of Norwegian kindergarten for the Ministry of Education. The organization has looked at how Norwegian nursery sector has evolved since it was last put under the microscope by the OECD in 1999 and what should be the way forward.
The report gives Norwegian nursery sector praise in several areas. Partly to largely have addressed the issues that were raised in 1999, including increased availability. The report also points out that Norway is one of the OECD countries that use the largest percentage of public funds for kindergartens.
There are still some points that OECD believes should be improved. Here are the essentials:
1. Huge shortage of skilled labor
Despite boasting that Norway has implemented strategies to increase the number of employees in the kindergartens and the proportion of those with relevant education, says OECD that there is still a great lack of qualified labor in Norwegian kindergartens.
According to figures from Statistics Norway worked the last 31,171 assistants in Norwegian kindergartens. Only 1,708 of them had some kind of educational training.
The report was only 37.5 percent of the samledede workforce in kindergarten sector qualified kindergarten teachers in 2013.
OECD wants relevant education should be a requirement for all who will work with children and thinks it should be put in place a national strategy with clear targets to reduce the number of unskilled. Among the measures proposed to increase the intake of skilled labor are incentives like higher wages and working conditions juxtaposed with primary school teachers.
The current arrangement with an exemption for unskilled people in leadership positions should be phased out and it should be made for continuous education of employees.
2. Daycare when still not out of all
Despite major improvements in this area are still not kindergarten for all.
Norway should try harder to reach out to groups who still do not use kindergartens , says the OECD. In areas that are struggling with low child care coverage should be considered to provide financial support to bring up the number of places.
The coverage for children in kindergarten in Norway has remained stable at 90 percent in recent years, according to Statistics Norway.
But groups minoretsspråklige children lagging behind despite an increase of 7 percent over the past five years. 75 percent of minor ity language children between 1-5 years in kindergarten.
The report proposes several measures to increase the proportion of children from minority groups and families with lower incomes. Including by introducing a more dynamic price scale and to improve contact with groups such as through communication in multiple languages.
The OECD also believes that it should put in place a more flexible system for kindergarten admission.
3. The funding system is too complicated
There are major differences in municipal funding of kindergartens. A financing system that is too complex contributes to this.
The report mentions several challenges this causes. Since private kindergartens public support follows the average cost of public kindergartens, this leads to some municipalities reduces the cost of daycare to save money. This leads to uncertain financial framework for private kindergartens.
The report also a concern that some private providers, despite the quality regulations, earn large amounts of money on daycare sector through complicated corporate structures and poorer pension schemes for staff.
The solution OECD proposes to strengthen the financial management by simplifying the funding and linking financial benefits to the chosen destination. Then admittedly supervision of kindergartens be better:
4. Municipal supervision responsibility does not
The municipalities’ supervisory responsibilities does not mean OEDC. The current system is not well enough to consider how the nursery work. In particular it is an issue that municipalities who own a large proportion of kindergartens simultaneously should consider them.
In addition, municipalities lack the capacity to assist so that the Authority contributes to higher quality in kindergartens, concludes oraganisasjonen.
OECD suggest you develop for example networking and cooperation among municipalities to ensure objectivity and independent oversight and that clearly defines the Authority function and scope. In the longer term it is recommended that Norway is developing a separate system for supervision and monitoring.
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