幼儿教育的教学质量：来自保加利亚、罗马尼亚、北马其顿和科索沃的证据

MacedoniaandKosovo December2025 Executivesummary Early childhoodeducation(ECE)offers wide-ranging and well-documented benefits—yetaccess and financing inthe Western Balkansand parts of the EUremain limited.ECE1plays avital role inthedevelopment of children—especially the mostvulnerable—whilesupporting theWorld Bank’s Jobs Agenda byimproving labor market outcomes later in life,boosting female laborforce participation, creatingnew employment, and contributing to broader societal well-being.Economic returnstoECEoften far exceed the cost of investment.However,in the WesternBalkans2,ECEaccess andfinancing remain limited, lagging far behindthe EU-27.More recentEUentrants–Bulgaria and Romania–perform better butstill face notable challenges. Thesignificant gains to be madefromECEareconditional onhighprocessquality,whichincludeseffectiveteaching practices.To realize the high potential returnstoECE, quality–in bothpublic and private settings–must be prioritized;not just access.Evidence shows that poor-qualityECE can be ineffective or even harmful to children's development and safety. Quality in ECE goesbeyond structural factorssuch asavailability ofinfrastructure andlearningmaterials. It alsoincludesprocessquality, whichencompasseschildren’sclassroom interactions and teachingpractices.While often overlooked,process qualityisa critical driver of positive developmentaloutcomes for children. Leveragingrecent classroom observations conducted in Bulgaria, Romania, North Macedonia,and Kosovo, this brief provides insights into ECE teaching quality and preliminary pathways forimprovementin the four countries.The brief draws on newly collected datafrom the fourfocuscountriesgathered through the TEACH ECE (in Bulgaria, Romania, and Kosovo) and MELQO (inNorth Macedonia)measurementtools.TEACH ECEandMELQO, innovations(co-)developed bythe World Bank,areadvancingfrontierknowledgeon ECE byenabling toobserveteachers inactionandcapture thekey dimensions ofECEteaching quality(Box 1).Availability of the datainthefour countriesenablesnewregional-level analysisoffering fresh insights into the state of ECEteaching quality.The brief is designed toserve as a reference tool for policymakers seeking todeepen efforts to enhance access to quality ECE and build strong ECE teaching workforces. Initialfindingssuggestthatteachers have gaps in supporting the development of children’scritical thinking and socio-emotional skills,as well asearly numeracy and literacy,whileexperienced teachersdisplay the highest levels of teaching qualityandteaching quality in ruralareas is lower than in urban locations.TEACH ECE data forBulgaria, Romania andKosovo suggeststhatteachersperform better at creating a supporting classroom culture than fosteringchildren’s key skills, with MELQO results in North Macedoniashowing similar patterns.In addition,pooled TEACH ECE data for Bulgaria, Romania and Kosovoindicatethateducators with25 or moreyears of experienceoutperform their morejunior peers on all aspects of teaching quality,whileteachers in urban areas exhibit higher levels of teaching quality than their rural counterparts.MELQOresults from North Macedoniafurther underscore the importance of teaching quality,showing a positive correlationwithchildren’s development. These findings offer initial guidance for countries seeking to strengthen their ECE teachingworkforce.The World Bank identifies four key actions to improve teaching quality: attracting,preparing, supporting, and retaining teachers. While the new observational data should beinterpreted with caution due to sampling and methodological limitations, it can still informpractical steps for implementing these four actions. Teachers need stronger skills topromotechildren’s socio-emotional development,criticalthinkingand early literacy and numeracy. All countries would benefit from leveragingexperienced teachers and implementing targeted interventions in rural areas.In contexts suchas Bulgaria and Romania, where the ECE workforce is relatively young and large-scale recruitmentisnot an immediate priority,teachers’ability to nurture children’s critical thinking,socioemotional skillsand early numeracy and literacycan be advanced through focused in-servicetraining programs.Allfour focus countries should engage experienced teachers-who consistentlydemonstratebetterteachingpractices-in structured mentorship programs to support lessexperienced colleagues in improving their practices. Strengthened mentorship can also helpreduce teacher attrition.In addition, all four countries should consider targeting supportinterventions towards rural educators, whoexhibit the lowest levels of teaching quality. Tofully understand gaps in teaching qualityand devise comprehensive policy responses,measuring ECE teaching quality at scale isneeded.The preliminary pathways outlined above arenot intendedto serveas an exhaustive set of recommendations, but rather as a starting point fora more in-depth diagnostic process.Tools such asTEACH