Instrumento para avaliação de qualidade em creches: documentos oficiais brasileiros como fonte de pesquisa

Abstract

Early Childhood is a period of life, from 0 to 6 years of age, when brain structures are in accelerated development and there is still great malleability in the formation of neural pathways. This condition does not repeat itself in the same way throughout life, giving vital importance to what children experience during these years. Therefore, ensuring the quality of the experiences lived by children is fundamental for promoting a healthy development. Appropriate conditions and stimuli for the healthy development of children are the subject of many studies in academia. With about 9 million children enrolled, Brazilian Early Childhood Education (ECE) is defined as the first stage of basic education, which serves children from zero to three years old in daycare and four and five years old in preschool. ECE purpose is to promote the integral development of the child, in its physical, psychological, intellectual and social aspects, complementing the action of the family and the community. In search of the guarantee that they serve their purpose, several national official documents bring norms and guidelines agreed upon in the public debate. One way that proves to be effective in actually achieving the objectives proposed therein is to promote periodic evaluation processes that provide the necessary information to monitor the education offered by the networks. There are several instruments designed for this purpose. The MELQO (Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes) initiative presents a free and elaborate alternative for large-scale use. Its MELE (Measuring Early Learning Environments) module, aimed at evaluating ECE environments for 4 and 5-year-old children, was adapted for the Brazilian context. The objective of this work is to present an analysis of what the national documents aimed at Early Childhood Education bring about practices adopted for working with children aged between 2 and 3 years old, in order to contribute to the creation of items to be added to the version adapted to the Brazilian context of the MELE module. Thematic content analysis was carried out, with the research corpus consisting of official documents and other process evaluation instruments. For the identified categories, specific items were prepared. As a result, 4 categories were listed from the content analysis: (1) Food moments; (2) Hygiene; (3) Moments of sleep and rest; and (4) Emotional Support. 41 new items were created to address the gaps identified in these categories. The results point to the difference in the times of public policy and academia and to the importance of considering the demands of the network in the process of elaborating an evaluation instrument.