The leaders and the trailers
European countries snapped up all, but four of the top twenty positions, with Finland, Sweden and Norway taking up the top three spots. Singapore took the 29th slot, just under Australia, Greece and Canada. India, Indonesia and the Philippines took the last three spots. The consensus is that European countries offer the most affordable and high-quality preschool programmes in the world.
The rankings were based on four index categories:
Availability, Affordability, Quality and Context and when the data was compiled and analyzed, there were several key findings that were made.
Firstly, many high-income countries ranked poorly despite wealth being a major factor in a country’s ability to deliver preschool services. The casualties included Canada, Singapore and the US, which were all listed in the lower half of the index, despite their high average per capita incomes.
Another key finding revealed that ensuring a
high standard of teacher training and education, setting clear curriculum guidelines, and ensuring parental involvement are some of the main drivers of preschool education quality.