Research study

The goal of the research ‘Bulgaria grows with its children: Building professional competences for early childhood development’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘research on the early years workforce’ and ‘the research’) is to outline the main directions for improvement of the professionalization of the early years workforce on the basis of data – quantitative and qualitative – as well as to formulate recommendations for policy development in this area.



This summary shares the main results and recommendations derived from this research.

This report which was issued by BRIDGE, Ilifa Labantwana, National ECD Alliance (NECDA), the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Smartstart and the South African Congress for Early Childhood Development (SACECD), is based on a survey of 3,952 ECD operators in South Africa conducted in mid-April 2020.

This paper reports on a study into the possible roles social media might play in teacher education in challenging contexts. It focused on the role of WhatsApp use and developing teacher resilience by forming teacher communities of practice. This work built on prior activity taking place in teacher associations in three sub-Saharan countries: Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Rwanda and sought to develop both good practices in using WhatsApp for distance teacher development as well as engage in collaborative research.

It is paramount that the Education in Emergencies sector shares and learns from promising policies, practices, and research approaches for supporting teachers in crisis contexts. For this reason, this publication provides donors,policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and teachers with compelling examples of programs and practices that positively influence improvements in teachers’ work conditions and teaching practice.

The aim of this paper is to supports the ways countries may go about developing or strengthening their pre-primary workforce. There are multiple pathways to competent and effective workforce that may be relevant to different country context and that may combine different level of qualifications, with training and retention strategies in support of developing adapted career trajectories for pre-primary teachers.

Informing and guiding the development of a Framework to Strengthen the Capacity of “Tipat Halav” nurses in Israel is a qualitative research study on behalf of Goshen Institute, with the overall objective to generate in-depth data that unveil effective processes and strategies which need to be in place in order to achieve a practice-change among 

The Early Years Professionals’ Survey 2019, conducted by SIPTU Big Start Campaign, was carried out to gather information on the attitudes of those employed in the early years sector in relation to their work and involvement in early years settings and changes they thought could be made to improve the sector. Using the 3,200 survey responses this report gives a picture of the attitudes, experiences and expectations of those working in Ireland's early years sector.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) – the phase before primary education – is increasingly acknowledged as providing the foundations for lifelong learning and development. This second edition of Key Data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe charts the progress made in the key quality areas identified in the Council Recommendation on High Quality ECEC Systems.