12 | Quality Early Learning
sufficient private provision of quality ECE for families that can afford it, governments can focus limited public resources on families most in need. Governments could also offer incentives for the nonstate sector to provide quality ECE to vulnerable populations, including learners with disabilities, girls, ethnic and racial minorities, and refugees or displaced persons, among others. Regardless of the specific strategy, ensuring consistently sufficient quality across service providers is essential, and two-tier quality systems that undermine vulnerable children’s opportunities should be avoided. Leveraging the nonstate sector to expand access to quality ECE involves governments engaging with local providers, setting realistic standards that BOX O.1
Gradually Upskilling the Workforce: The Case of Hong Kong SAR, China The development of the regulated early childhood education (ECE) sector in Hong Kong SAR, China, was a response to the challenges that proliferated during the massive expansion of private ECE access. Enrollment in private unregulated ECE services grew twelvefold between 1951 and 1979, and this explosion of ECE demand resulted in a private ECE sector increasingly defined by poor service delivery, an untrained workforce, and high child-to-adult ratios. In response to growing public pressures to offer more (and better) ECE, the government released an official policy on preprimary services in 1981, setting stringent targets for the upgrading of ECE quality in decades to come. This policy targeted ECE teacher training in particular and articulated the goal of certifying 45 percent of teachers and 100 percent of principals in five years and reaching 90 percent of teachers by 1992. This same document also made recommendations for minimum standards related to space, materials, equipment, and child-to-adult ratios in kindergarten classrooms. One of the biggest investments in the ECE sector came through policies and financing focused on teacher professional development. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the government allocated 163 million Hong Kong dollars (HK$) over four years to provide professional training to kindergarten teachers, created certificates of ECE for in-service teachers, and implemented a government-subsidy scheme that allowed kindergartens to increase pay for trained teachers without needing to substantially increase parental fees. These measures to enact defined standards for classroom quality required an eightfold increase in government expenditure for kindergarten continued next page
