Two professional challenges of the reggio emilia pedagogical approach: Curriculum planning and evaluation of educational work in preschool

dr. Mojca Kovač Šebart and dr. Andreja Hočevar

Summary:  In this text, we discuss educational work in preschools in the absence of a pre-designed curriculum. We show that different approaches to planning preschool education may have advantages and disadvantages that cannot be avoided even if we reject curriculum planning. We, therefore, believe that it is more sensible to insist on the convergent use of strategies for curriculum planning, as a means of preserving the advantages of particular strategies while establishing safeguards against their weaknesses. We also present a concept of preschool quality evaluation that is not based on empirical data gathered through instruments that have been methodologically appropriately prepared, believing such a concept to be founded on universal norms formulated by experts, in which quality is understood as the agreement of services and practices measured according to these norms.