Pædagogers deltagelse i efteruddannelse: Pædagogers interesser i og barrierer for deltagelse i efteruddannelse. Resultater fra en interviewundersøgelse og en survey.

The purpose of the study is to examine why so many early childhood educators apparently opt not to take a formal continuing and further education and traning qualification, in particular a diploma degree, at any time in their career.

Several of the managers and staff indicated that they think it is problematic that many of the requirements they have to meet in their jobs are defined by external parties. These are what they refer to as compulsory activities (e.g. introduction of and courses about documentation, evaluation, inclusion, dialogical reading, environmental activities , and predictive risk models). These activities are all forward looking, which, according to the early childhood educators, allows too little time to reflect critically on practices currently being used by themselves personally and the staff as a whole. The educators feel that there are insufficient resources available in the daycare facilities, and this leads to a feeling of guilt toward the children and colleagues if they choose to prioritise continuing training. Thus they feel that continuing-training programmes that run for a longer period are a further strain on resources. In contrast, the early childhood educators are very satisfied with the opportunities they have to go on shorter courses and attend thematic days about how to deal with challenges in their everyday work.

The study shows that strategic initiatives launched by management at municipal level are in fact sometimes perceived as an interference and an obstruction of the daycare facility’s own visions and planning for the year’s activities. Even though daycare managers focus on educational planning in their work - also in the long term with regard to culture changes, e.g. the inclusion aspect - several indicators point to educational planning being based on more short-term and reactive considerations. That is, focus is on utilitarian and technical skills (e.g. the Ministry of Social Affairs, Children and Integration’s language programme for daycare staff and language assessments), and can therefore be seen more as an adaption to changes that have already taken place rather than as an offensive strategy for the facility’s development. In light of this development, managers would like to be more involved in municipal and government initiatives. The study shows that both staff and managers are positive and open toward knowledge and perspectives from external players, however they find it problematic when the daycare facilities are not involved in educational initiatives. Both staff and managers point to the diploma programme rather than courses and personnel days when identifying challenges to practical planning in daily activities.

Data collection builds on a preliminary explorative study, surveys and interviews. A preliminary explorative study among key individuals (confederal secretaries from the Danish Union of Early Childhood and Youth Educators (BUPL), pedagogical consultants in the municipalities, consultants in education and training departments, etc.) was conducted with a view to clarifying the various planning and financing practices used in municipalities. This part of the study primarily consisted of telephone interviews. The interview study included interviews with seven early childhood educators who had all completed a formal qualifying continuing training programme and eight early childhood educators who had not completed any qualifying continuing training programme, but who have all taken other continuing training courses, participated in theme days, etc. A total of 20 municipalities were included in the survey. These municipalities varied greatly with regard to their daycare facilities, management style, size of population, good or bad financial situation and different strategies for planning continuing training offers for staff.

Ahrenkiel, A., Frederiksen, J., Helms, S. & Krab, J. (2012). Pædagogers deltagelse i efteruddannelse: Pædagogers interesser i og barrierer for deltagelse i efteruddannelse. Resultater fra en interviewundersøgelse og en survey. University College Sjælland.