Intercultural Early Childhood Education and Care – Curriculum Design for Professionals Erasmus Project

Project Title

Intercultural Early Childhood Education and Care – Curriculum Design for Professionals

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care), the preschool education has the highest returns in terms of results and social adaptation of children and plays a crucial role to ensure equal opportunities to all children at the entrance of the school and the development of the necessary skills to achieve good learning outcomes. It contributes to improve social inclusion of disadvantaged children, to prevent ESL.

I.ECEC project contributes to increase the quality and inclusivity of Early Childhood Education, improves the competences of the educators and teachers and strengthening their professional profile, to achieve to a more inclusive and supportive preschools system with special attention to children from vulnerable groups, to combating social exclusion, reducing poverty and combating early school leaving.

I.ECEC improved the intercultural knowledge and skills of the educators and teachers, and the quality of preschools, starting from the Context and Educators’ Training Needs Analysis carried out in the frame of the ERASMUS+ KA2 MECEC+.
I.ECEC proposes an innovative Intercultural Early Childhood Education model and curriculum for educators and preschool education providers, applicable to university courses and to training in practice, to answer actual needs of children and their families, as well as ECEC providers.

The project was developed thanks to a knowledge alliance and cooperation between Higher Education Institutions and preschools providers, public and private, in a mutual sharing and common development of knowledge, good practices, methodologies to achieve the common goal of improvement of the quality and inclusion of early childhood educational services. The transnational collaboration is valuable, since the 3 involved country have very different context, educational system and approach, and the exchange is enriching for partners, for the project results and for the common effort of member states, asked to provide high quality and effective educational paths, to build a more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous societies in all Europe.

The tangible results are the new curriculum on intercultural early education, and the educational model.
The curriculum is based on 4 modules:
1) Plural and Complex Societies
2) Diversity, Inclusion and Participation in ECEC Services: Relationship with Families and Community
3) Diversity, Inclusion and Participation in ECEC Services: What Approaches and Methods with Children
4) Flexible Practices, Innovation and Transformation.
The curriculum is public in the Publication “INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES FOR THE TRAINING OF EDUCATIONAL STAFF IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES”, available on the Online Platform created to share the methodology, objectives and results, for freely download or consultation. The platform includes a rich collection of Open Educational Resources for teachers, professionals, students, of different tools and sources. To make their use easier, a TEACHER MANUAL is also provided.
Considering the historical moment, and how much the pandemic has affected educational services, the project partners carried out a study in Belgium, Hungary and Italy to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on preschool services, collecting and analyzing the testimonies of the educators. The Study on the impact of COVID is available on the platform.

A result stable in the future are the inter-university agreements, for future common courses and initiative, and the Italian-Hungarian Double Degrees in Early Childhood Education.

Several methodologies new applied:
– Pedagogical framework
– 1 Short Training for trainers
– Curriculum design
– Pilot training, testing in nurseries, observation, validation
– Collection of learning materials and development of new ones
– 3 Short Training/study visit in Brussels, Budapest, Florence for educators involved in pilot training and testing
– Video recorded by educators to show the preschools and their routine
– Evaluation of the impact in practice
– OER collection, selection and classification
– Teacher Manual
– Final Publication to share the new curriculum, methodology, indication for future improvement, participants’ feedbacks
– Cooperation between management of Universities6 Transnational project meetings in presence, hybrid or online, coordination meetings at local and partnership level
– Dissemination and sharing of results via national/international conferences, lessons, professional meeting, meeting with children’s families, articles, publications, seminars, contact with European professionals and representatives and policy decision makers, online platform, FB, websites, 6 hybrid, in person, online Multiplier Events.
– Research via questionnaires on COVID impact on ECEC
– External Evaluation

Project Website

http://www.interculturaleducation.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 384681,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

Galileo Progetti Nonprofit Korlátolt Felelösségü Társaság & Country: HU

Project Partners

• jozsefvarosi egyesitett bolcsodek
• EOTVOS LORAND TUDOMANYEGYETEM
• ERASMUSHOGESCHOOL BRUSSEL
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI FIRENZE
• ARCA Cooperativa Sociale