engleski

Catching up on their own? Limits of expansion of early childhood education and care in devolved system marked by territorial economic disparities

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) have become critical for both child development and work-life balance, what also resulted in EU ECEC attendance targets. However, the progress has been uneven within the EU, in part due to distinct features of institutional designs. Namely, while the ECEC systems are decentralised in most of the countries, central-local tensions may develop differently in different national contexts and governance regimes. The failure to reach ECEC targets may be particularly visible in countries with strongly devolved systems operating within the context of large territorial economic disparities, particularly if coupled with vague framework law and lack of dedicated budgetary transfer mechanisms. Such systems may `institutionalise` territorial disparities in ECEC attendance and raise equity concerns. Croatia is an exemplary case of such a devolved system, where planning, organizing, financing and provision of ECEC lies upon the lowest tier of local government. At the national level only general policy framework is defined, stipulating the staff qualification and service delivery standards. There is no legal entitlement to ECEC, while the development of capacities is fully left to fiscal capabilities of local communities. More than 99% of funds are coming from the local budgets, that are prone to change due to revenues being highly dependent on fiscal policy set at national level. While the ECEC policy setting was stable in the last twenty years, fiscal policy has been subject to frequent reforms. This paper thus aims to explore the limits of the ECEC development within such an institutional setting, particularly the effect fiscal reforms may have on disposable revenues of local communities and their capacities to invest in ECEC. The investigated period also allows to assess the effects of external shocks (i.e. economic crisis) on resilience/retrenchment of the ECEC system. Using the panel data containing a total of 6.116 observations from all 556 Croatian municipalities over 2004-2015 period we will examine to which extent changes in local budgets, expenditure commitment of local government, and demographic shifts are associated with changes in number of ECEC placements, expenditure per pupil and ECEC quality (pupil/teacher ratio). Due to total dependence of ECEC on disposable local budgets, a particular focus is given to the effect of fiscal reforms, i.e. we will examine whether fiscal reforms in observed period, which induced windfalls or austerity in towns/municipalities` budgets, affected their ability to provide ECEC. To check for resilience of once established ECEC services to austerity, the effects of budgetary growth and cuts will be estimated separately. The paper brings important contribution to the literature on the effects of decentralisation on delivery and efficiency of social services. Above all, it will point at challenges a strongly devolved ECEC systems may face in setting up entitlement for all children due to existing delivery and opportunity gaps across economically disparate localities, but also for efficiency of ECEC provision in areas characterised by strong growth.

Early childhood education and care ; decentralisation, territorial disparities

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