The TALIS Starting Strong Survey: implications for the leadership discourse in early childhood education and care

Early childhood education has been a high priority on the agenda of international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the World Bank , and of national and local policy makers for some time now (Mahon, 2016). In many countries early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been extended to include younger children and has become universal for older children during the one or two years before they start school (four to five year olds) in most countries in the OECD area. Consequently, public resources allocated to