Ankie, you’ve been a strong voice in European advocacy for the improvement of Early Childhood Development in the past decades. What has improved and what needs improvement still?

First of all, I prefer talking about Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) – as a broad sector working with young children and their families – rather than about Early Child Development (a more general concept, which comprises a lot more).

And yes, indeed, a lot has been happening in Early Childhood Education and Care in the past decades. Most of all it has gained an important place on the agenda, both in policy and practice. For a long time, policy was mostly about education in terms of primary and secondary education. Young children seemed to be a group that remained quite invisible, left to the care and responsibilities of their parents only.

The notion that raising children is a shared responsibility between parents and society in general, has gained more support, which is great, and more in line of what the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been stating for over a few decades now. Evidence has become quite overwhelming on the importance of the early years and I am happy to see that this has had its effect on policy in the EU as well as in member states.

Throughout the member states we have seen improvements on many relevant issues such as increased accessibility, better qualified staff, more involvement of parents etc. But a lot still needs to be done, especially when we would use the European Quality Framework as a standard. I think about issues such as making access to Early Childhood Education and Care a legal entitlement, increasing public funding (especially for the 0-3y olds), improving the staff qualifications, both in terms of initial training and in continuous professional development.

Also, we still notice persistent misunderstandings on Early Childhood Education and Care, especially for the youngest children, as if childcare is some kind of necessary evil; that young children are best off at home (mostly mothers) or that childcare is mostly about feeding and changing babies and toddlers. Not everyone is convinced yet that it is also an important pedagogical space, adding on to what young children experience and learn at home.

With and for VBJK you’ve initiated many projects to help guide the Early Childhood Education and Care workfield. Why now the 5 Steps to Quality training with ISSA? How does it all integrate in the bigger picture of your aspirations and your career?

VBJK has been involved in the drafting of the European Quality Framework and it supports many of our projects. The European Quality Framework is a very comprehensive document, suggesting improvements on all the main current issues in Early Childhood Education and Care, backed up with relevant research findings and illustrated with practices that prove that it is feasible to implement.

As we consider the content of the European Quality Framework as being highly important and inspirational, we want to share it with as many professionals, and policymakers, as possible. Here’s where ISSA plays an important role, supporting so many professionals in the field, linking colleagues from all corners of Europe to discuss all the main themes of the framework.

Personally, I see 2 relevant aspects for my aspirations. I have been working on children’s rights all through my professional life and in working on Early Childhood Education and Care. I have now been focusing on the youngest group, which has been overlooked for quite a long time (including by myself). Many of the principles in the European Quality Framework relate to children’s rights, even though that is not always made explicit (right to develop to the fullest potential, right to all possible support in life, role of the parents as first educator, right to be protected from discrimination, from violence…).

Also, the longer I work in Early Childhood Education and Care, the more I get to understand that all is indeed connected, as becomes clear in the European Quality Framework. Talking about quality has to do with pedagogical issues, legal access regulations, qualifications of staff and diversity of staff, competent systems, viewing children – even young ones – as actors, agents in their own lives.

Are there difficulties in Early Childhood Education and Care that require immediate action, and does the European Quality Framework offer a quick fix for struggling organizations?

Quick fixes are hardly ever doable….and often not good in the long run either. I think the European Quality Framework does offer many valued suggestions (the document has no legal power), that member states can start to work on. The upcoming recommendation and the list of indicators that has been drafted can be a great support here. A recommendation can offer the legal support that the framework needs. And the indicators offer a strong tool for states to use, e.g. to check where their scores are low, what the most urgent challenges are.

What can be started for sure is working with the rather innovate approach of quality in general, being more of an ongoing process on different levels than a set goal to aim at, or to be reached once and for all. This will require a change of mind, which always takes time. E.g. viewing access as a fundamental element of quality. For a long time, these two issues were not so closely connected. Now we know that getting all young children to have access to Early Childhood Education and Care is not enough in itself; the services rendered need to be of high quality as well. At the same time, we now also realize that services that are not accessible for all, cannot really be ‘qualitative’ in the European Quality Framework sense of the word. Especially not in our societies which are becoming more diverse.


Looking at truly vulnerable children and their parents, coming from all kinds of backgrounds and dealing with all kinds of social restrictions. Are there hopes or aspirations that the European Quality Framework helps improve their situations, or does that require a turn around a different corner?

The European Quality Framework, especially with the support of a recommendation and a set of indicators, can really boost the necessary steps forward to be taken. In this area issues like access as a legal entitlement and competencies on diversity and inclusion within the whole Early Childhood Education and Care system are vital issues. This is not saying that it will be easy, given the poor budgetary context in some countries, the sometimes adverse public opinion (and therefore policies that follow…) and lack of understanding of the importance of strong Early Childhood Education and Care. It will take a lot of political will and strong advocacy but I am optimistic. A few hundreds of years ago, attending school was also a thing for the happy few…

You are one of the trainers of ISSA’s 5 Steps to Quality Training. Is addressing a compact group of 25 people from across Europe also an opportunity to hear back on current developments? And how do you endorse or use such stories to further help improve the Early Childhood Education and Care workfield?

I am strongly convinced that participating in a training with colleagues from different countries is always good to learn about developments elsewhere, to get eye-openers and to learn from each other. Every shared story or experience can help us move forward on discovering strategies or approaches that work, problems and challenges to be aware of or practices to be inspired by.