A trial for two-year pre-primary education changed the social environment of five-year-olds in early childhood education

The Ministry of Education and Culture set up a national two-year pre-primary education trial in 148 municipalities. It involved children born in 2016 and 2017, of whom about 15,000 children started in pre-primary education already at the age of 5 in experimental groups, while about 20,000 children participated customarily in early childhood education in control groups.

A recent article in the journal Yhteiskuntapolitiikka analyses how the experimental and control groups differed in terms of factors related to the teaching and education staff and composition of the child groups. These factors are considered pivotal for the quality of early childhood education.

The research team has previously examined these quality-related structural factors with regard to the age cohort born in 2016 . The now published study is the first one that also looks at the provision of pre-primary and early childhood education for the age cohort born in 2017 as well. In addition, the two age cohorts are compared to each other.

Group structures varied for five-year-olds in pre-primary and early childhood education

The research results confirm the earlier finding that the experimental status of child groups was connected to teachers’ qualification, group-specific staff structure, and age distribution within the child group. 

“The teachers of the experimental groups were more often qualified for their job than the teachers of the control groups,” says Project Researcher Mimmu Sulkanen from the University of Jyväskylä. “Moreover, in comparison to the control groups, the experimental child groups were more often guided by teams consisting of two teachers and one daycare worker. The control groups, however, more often had one teacher and two daycare workers.”

The experimental groups also more often consisted of children who were five years or older. The control groups, in turn, were more typically mixed groups of five-year-olds and younger children. The effect arising from experimental groups’ higher proportion of mixed groups of five- and six-year-olds, in particular, was highlighted especially for the latter age cohort, those born in 2017. 

Based on the results, the trial seems to have changed the five-year-olds’ social environment in early childhood education, although the experimentation legislation and pilot curriculum did not provide explicit guidance.

“The legislation only requires that in the experimental groups one teacher had to have a pre-primary teacher’s qualification, while in the control groups the corresponding requirement was an early childhood education teacher’s qualification,” says the project leader, Professor Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen from the University of Jyväskylä. 

The sites and children for the trial were chosen by random sampling in order to eliminate possible between-group differences in the comparative setting. Hence, the sites may have made different choices as to how the child groups were formed and how the experiment was organised. 

“The current findings are important in determining how two-year pre-primary education, when implemented, would possibly change early childhood education,” says Professor Maarit Alasuutari from the University of Jyväskylä. “This research helps predict possible changes when deciding on a possible shift to two-year pre-primary education.”

The two-year pre-primary education trial is being reviewed and evaluated by a multidisciplinary follow-up study conducted by the University of Jyväskylä, Aalto University, VATT Institute for Economic Research, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Turku. The final report on the trial will be published at the end of 2025. The study is part of the EDUCA – Education for the future Flagship funded by the Research Council of Finland. This is the first time when education policy decisions will be made on the basis of research.