Modern preschool education in Russia: a view from the inside

Abstract

The paper presents the results of a study on the attitude of preschool educational institutions' employees to changes in modern Russian preschool education. The study involved 658 employees of kindergartens from 74 Russian regions. The results show that the majority of the respondents are satisfed with the way the Federal State Educational Standard of preschool education (FSES PE) is implemented. At the same time, in comparison with other regions, teachers from Moscow show statistically higher levels of satisfaction (p <0.01, χ² criterion); younger teachers (under 30 years) and more mature teachers (over 50 years) (p <0.01, χ² criterion) compared with middle aged teachers. The overwhelming majority (83.4%) of respondents indicated signifcant changes in kindergarten: the greatest of them are associated with changes in parent's attitude to kindergarten (85.6% of respondents), in educational technologies (75.7% of respondents), and in the organization of educational environment (70.3% of respondents). Moreover, the respondents from Moscow signifcantly more often (p <0.05, χ² criterion) talk about changes in parent's attitude to kindergarten and in teacher's relationship with children. There has been also found the connection with the work experience in kindergartens - the longer the respondents work in kindergarten, the more often they say that both the parent's attitude and the teacher's relationship with children have changed (p <0.05, χ²criterion). The article also presents data on the areas of changes in educational programs that are considered to be signifcant to respondents. The possible reasons for various attitudes of different groups of teachers to changes and the possible consequences in terms of a more informed acceptance and implementation of the FSES PE are discussed.