In order to reveal the believes of teachers and parents about good kindergarten, the anonymous survey was carried out using standard toolkit of European Quality Seal international project (Tietze at al. 2021). Participation was voluntary for all respondents. The questionnaire was based on quality criteria used in reliable tools for evaluation and development of preschool education quality: ECERS-R (Harms et al, 2017) and German Quality Catalogue (Tietze at al. 2018). The questionnaire was comprised of closed and open-ended questions. Closed questions described in details each of 52 quality criteria. Respondents answered what range of importance the characteristic seemed to be irrespective of the ECEC setting’s specificity which his/her child attended or he/she worked in. The numeric scale was used for expression of respondent’s opinion, where was considered as not important and 7 as very important. Before the set of closed questions, the respondents represented their own key criteria, after the closed questions set, they could add supplemental criteria, which they considered as important but did not find them in the proposed list. There were 9 countries involved: Germany, Austria, Chile, China, Denmark, Norway, Ukraine, Russia. Vietnam.  The participants were preschool teachers and parents of children attended the class of these teachers (one teacher and at least 8 families of children from the same class).

The study involved 478 preschool teachers and 3938 parents representing 243 independent preschool institutions from 19 subjects of the Russian Federation, as well as 57 educators and 284 parents from 26 Moscow general education organizations with full-day preschool groups. Additionally, the point of view of 18 experts in the field of preschool education is presented.

In order to reveal the believes of teachers and parents about good kindergarten, the anonymous survey was carried out using standard toolkit of European Quality Seal international project (Tietze at al. 2021). Participation was voluntary for all respondents. The questionnaire was based on quality criteria used in reliable tools for evaluation and development of preschool education quality: ECERS-R (Harms et al, 2017) and German Quality Catalogue (Tietze at al. 2018). The questionnaire was comprised of closed and open-ended questions. Closed questions described in details each of 52 quality criteria. Respondents answered what range of importance the characteristic seemed to be irrespective of the ECEC setting’s specificity which his/her child attended or he/she worked in. The numeric scale was used for expression of respondent’s opinion, where was considered as not important and 7 as very important. Before the set of closed questions, the respondents represented their own key criteria, after the closed questions set, they could add supplemental criteria, which they considered as important but did not find them in the proposed list. There were 9 countries involved: Germany, Austria, Chile, China, Denmark, Norway, Ukraine, Russia. Vietnam. The participants were preschool teachers and parents of children attended the class of these teachers (one teacher and at least 8 families of children from the same class). The study involved 478 preschool teachers and 3938 parents representing 243 independent preschool institutions from 19 subjects of the Russian Federation, as well as 57 educators and 284 parents from 26 Moscow general education organizations with full-day preschool groups. Additionally, the point of view of 18 experts in the field of preschool education is presented.

Consistency between parents and teachers on key positions evidences that there are grounds for a productive dialogue about the quality of preschool education. Significant differences in some important criteria point out that Such dialogue is crucially necessary. This dialogue should be mediated by experts who can adjust public opinion towards strengthening the significance of educational function of kindergarten.

Karlsson Lohmander, M., Sollars, V. Early childhood educators’ voices in shifting curricular policies and praxis, in Early Years: Making it Count. 29th EECERA Annual Conference, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 20–23 August 2019, Thessaloniki, Greece, 59 (2019) Göl-Güven, M., Boğaziçi University Journal of Education, 31(1), 19–43 (2014) Tietze, W., Fiernickel, S., Dittrich, I., Grenner, K., Hanisch, A., Marx, J. Evaluation and development of the quality of preschool education (Mozaika-sintez, Moscow, 2018) Tietze, W., Schneider, M., Lee, H.-J. (2021) Research Report on the International Validation Study “Parents’ and educators’ ratings of quality criteria for childcare facilities” Harms, T., Clifford, R., Cryer, D. Scales for a comprehensive assessment of the quality of education in a preschool education organization ECERS-R (Natsionalnoye obrazovaniye, Moscow, 2017)