Quality Early Learning

144 | Quality Early Learning

provided tablets for instructional support. Program participants showed improvements (Ngware et al. 2019; Piper, Merseth, and Ngaruiya 2018), but the research design precluded an estimate of the impact of the technology separate from the rest of the preprimary intervention. Understanding how and whether technology-enabled support for ECE educators is possible in other LMIC contexts remains an area for additional research.

However, evidence on effective ways to harness the power of technology to support in-service ECE educators is still lacking.

GUIDANCE ON IMPLEMENTATION This section focuses on providing policy makers with guidance on improving the quality of the ECE teacher workforce. Several action steps for policy makers to undertake are provided, along with suggestions on how, practically, these steps can happen.

Diagnose the ECE Situation in Context Policy makers should diagnose the particular situation in their individual contexts. This diagnosis will help provide a starting point and a sequence for the interventions that are most likely to be effective. Consider the links to the principles described above. Of course, each country is different and the ECE structures that inform policies related to educator preparation and support vary.

• Countries with high enrollment in ECE should manage their educator preparation systems very differently from those with low enrollment.

For example, a country with a gross enrollment ratio of 20 percent for preprimary education should have relatively limited qualification requirements because the short-term demand is for a rapid increase in educator availability. Plans should be in place to enhance those requirements over time and to help educators who enter with lower qualifications to upgrade. Countries with gross enrollment ratios of 80 percent or higher should focus more on increasing the requirements for educators, working alongside the treasury, to gradually but meaningfully increase compensation to make the ECE educator position more attractive.

• Countries with a low proportion of professionally trained ECE educators should operate differently from those with high levels of trained ECE educators. If very few educators are trained, the emphasis should be on integrating preservice ECE training with a robust in-service PD structure that can rapidly and effectively improve the skills of educators, ideally with a pathway to upgrading their formal, professional qualifications.

These countries could also examine the balance of public versus private