Early childhood education

Call for proposals: 06/03/2017
Funding period: 2018–2022
Fields of action: ‘Educational equity’ and ‘Quality in education’

Objectives of the funding measure
Good education from an early age is essential to ensure the social participation of all children and provide the basis for successful lifelong learning. This is because the specific experiences in the first years of life have a long-term impact on children’s educational and participation opportunities. Therefore, every child, regardless of his or her social, cultural or family background, should be given equal opportunity to receiving a good early education. In order to realise equal opportunities through education, sufficient childcare places are just as necessary as a high quality of early education with good language support. In addition, all children need generally stimulating or even equalising support from the very outset. That is why it is important to provide teaching staff with the best possible training, education and professional development. For a successful start to schooling and a smooth transition into it, it is important that day care centres and primary schools understand and appreciate each other and cooperate with each other in a concrete and lively exchange. Therefore, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s funding of research in this field aims to inform educational practice with empirical knowledge and research-based findings on the conditions for the success of good early education.
The projects in the funding directive are intended to provide insights into the aspects of this, including:
further redefinition of the tasks of child day care centres concerning their educational mandate, personnel development and the role of management in this process, the diversity and role of the providers operating child day care centres, observation of the different actors (parents, educational specialists, child day care centre management) and their interactions, and reflection on educational action in practice.

Link to funding directive:

Richtlinie zur Förderung der "Qualitätsentwicklung für gute Bildung in der frühen Kindheit".
Bundesanzeiger vom 06.03.2017

Link to projects in the Topic Finder