”Barnehager – arbeidsorganisering og kvalitet i en likhetsorientert kultur”.

This article is about how the organisation of work affects the quality of services at preschools in a town in Norway. The study examines how personnel at preschools assess how they use their time and how work can be organised better in order to increase the amount of time they spend with the children and the quality of services.

The questionnaire survey shows that assistant teachers state slightly more often than preschool teachers that they spend a lot of their time with the children, although there is no great difference between the assessments by the two groups. 72% of preschool teachers believe they spend too little time on direct work with children, and 77% believe they should spend more time with the children. 44% of assistant teachers believe that their own group spends too little time with the children, and the corresponding figure for specialist managers is 50%. On the basis of the employees’ assessments, it seems that quality could be improved if employees, and especially preschool teachers, had more time with the children.

25% of assistant teachers state that they spend a lot of time on meetings and planning, while 75% of preschool teachers state the same. Among preschool teachers and specialist managers, almost 40% believe that their group spends a lot of time on meetings and planning. The figure for assistant teachers is 20%. All respondents also point out that the more well-structure the meeting, the more important it feels.

The biggest drain on time with regard to the goal of spending more time with the children is practical tasks. Many people in all three groups believe that they spend too much time on practical tasks such as shopping and cleaning up. Among assistant teachers, 52% replied that they spend too much time on this type of work, while 59% of preschool teachers, and 29% of the specialist managers believed that practical tasks take up most of the time they could be spending with the children.

Overall, the study shows that the employees’ direct work with the children is important for the quality of the preschool. There are two types of task that take preschool teachers away from work with children. One is planning, professional development and meetings, which preschool teachers have to spend more time on than assistant teachers. The other type of task is practical work, i.e. tasks which do not require a professional qualification.

As the goal is that employees with a professional pedagogical qualification spend more time with the children, and as there are also concerns that assistant teachers have too little professional guidance by the preschool teachers, there is a paradox as the two groups divide the practical tasks equally between them. Further to this, the results of the study indicate a problem in the current equality culture among employees, in which many of them consider that the practical tasks should be divided equally.

The replies from the assistant teachers in the study demonstrate a desire and need for guidance from the preschool teachers and they would like the preschool teachers to be with them more to supply this guidance. Moreover, the study shows that equally dividing practical work obstructs opportunities for the preschool teachers to spend more time on their core tasks at preschools. It can be said that the equality culture is an obstacle to organising work to provide optimal quality.

The qualitative data for the study was gathered at seven preschools in a town in Norway. This data was supplemented through a brief questionnaire survey which was sent to all employees at preschools in the town (a total of 478 people). The preschools were selected so that they varied in size, employee seniority and work organisation. The study was composed of three elements: a diary survey in which 16 employees took part by recording their time consumption on different tasks; a qualitative interview survey of 28 employees; and a questionnaire survey in which a specialist manager who was part of the senior management, two assistant teachers, two preschool teachers and in some cases support personnel (interpreters, office staff or special-needs teachers) at each preschool took part. The questionnaire survey included 16 questions and the response rate was 55.6%.

Nicolaisen, H. & Åsmund, A.S. (2014). ”Barnehager – arbeidsorganisering og kvalitet i en likhetsorienteret kultur”. Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning, 17(4), 16-29.