The project builds an international consortium and partnership of experts in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC), with the aim to support and ensure a real multicultural and inclusive preschool education based on clear and sustainable principles. The partners in the project are Trnava University in Trnava (Slovakia), St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Turnovo (Bulgaria) and Sopron University (Hungary) represented by experts of the departments focused on ECEC, who are professionally well known on national and international level in terms of ECEC. At the same time there are partners in project representing schools, two kindergartens from Slovakia, one kindergarten from Bulgaria and one kindergarten from Hungary. All these kindergartens have excellent experience in multicultural and inclusive education, quality teaching staff and high motivation to work further in the field of inclusive education, to develop own approaches and methods, mutual cooperation and sharing of good practice. A special partner in the project is a non-EU University: Univeristas Negeri Semarang in Indonesia and its department of preschool education. In relation with the main theme of the project, this partner represents completely different cultural conditions, that have been standing actively on multicultural and inclusive baselines of Indonesian multicultural society, either speaking about ethnicity, social status or religiosity. The partnership of the countries is based on long-term cooperation in this field. The main aim of the project is to achieve, that the preschool education includes in real the principles of inclusive education as they are mentioned in the national curricular documents for preschool education. Also the aim is to achieve that the institutions for early and preschool education will understand the ideas and principles of inclusive education, so they would be able to apply a model of open education for all children, also they would be able to create a school curriculum that integrates diversity and inclusion in everyday work. All the project activities will lead to designing and developing the main outcomes of the project. The intellectual outcomes will include a complex Methodical handbook for cultural and social diversity in kindergartens. This handbook will be prepared in four languages (Slovak, Hungarian, Bulgarian and English) and there will be presented in details the principles of education ensuring inclusion and work with diversity (children and the environment). There will be also the application of these principles in school curriculum of kindergartens, design of inclusive education environment and a guide how to plan educational activities for the heterogonous groups of children as well as how to build in children a sense for cultural diversity. The handbook will be balanced in theory and practice, whilst the main addressees will be the teachers in early and preschool education. The second important outcome will be the political recommendations leading to a proposal of concrete ideas and suggestions, that should be implemented for a real and bride inclusive preschool education. It will be an analytically argued proposal for legislative measures for ensuring inclusive education in practice, ensuring cohere national curricular policy, international analysis of implementing policies of inclusive education in national policies of countries participating in this project. The third important outcome is a platform of national workshops, that will apply the intellectual outputs into practice through direct multiplication with the preschool teachers who will be able to transfer these outcomes into practice and so they can help with the dissemination of the project results. So, the results of the project will have an international, national and regional impact. In the common frame of the participating countries the conditions of the multicultural and inclusive preschool education will be supported in the institutions. There will be applied a coordinative strategy to implement the inclusive education in national conditions, fstarting from the innovation of curricular policy to ensuring good practice examples in school education programmes for inclusive education and also to design sets of educational activities relevant to multicultural and inclusive education in early and preschool age of children. Because the partners in the project are also responsible for initial teacher training, the dissemination of project results will also be through adaptation of curriculum in initial preschool teacher training. So, the profile of the new generation teachers will be more focused on supporting inclusive education as the most natural and necessary feature.
The project created an international consortium and partnership of workplaces focused on early childhood education and care in order to promote and ensure real multicultural and inclusive pre-school education at all relevant levels based on clear and adhered principles. The partner participants in the project were Trnava University (Slovakia), University of Sv. Cyril and Methodius Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria), Sopron University (Hungary), where representatives and authorities of workplaces (departments), which at the national and international level have long and intensively devoted to early and pre-school education and have a recognizable influence on this sector. At the same time, targeted kindergartens from all the mentioned countries were also involved in the project: from Slovakia there were two kindergartens, from Bulgaria and Hungary one kindergarten each. They were kindergartens that have excellent experience in the implementation of multicultural and inclusive education, quality staff and high motivation for further work in the field, to develop their approaches, to cooperate with each other and to share the results of good practice. A special participant in the project was a non-European university institution: Univeristas Negeri Semarang in Indonesia and its department of pre-school education. Within the central theme of the project, it was a partner workplace, which on the one hand represented completely different cultural conditions, those that have long and actively stood on the multicultural and inclusive foundations of Indonesian multicultural society, be it ethnicity, social status or religiosity. The partnership was based on a long-term cooperation in this area. The basic goal of the project was to ensure that pre-school education incorporates the principles of inclusive education as expressed in the national curricular documents of pre-school education. The aim was for ECEC institutions to understand together the ideas and principles of inclusive education, to be able to apply the open education model to all, to be able to create a school curriculum that integrates diversity and inclusion into everyday work. All project activities led to the creation and management of the main project outputs. The intellectual outputs include a comprehensive Methodological Handbook for Cultural and Social Diversity in Kindergartens, which was prepared in four languages (Slovak, Hungarian, Bulgarian, English) and elaborated in detail the principles of education capable of ensuring inclusion and targeted work with diversity (children and their environment). It was about the application of these principles in creating the school curriculum of kindergartens, for creating an inclusive educational environment and planning specific educational activities for the needs of heterogeneous groups of children, as well as for creating children's sense of cultural diversity. The handbook has a balanced theoretical and applied character, while its main addressees are employees of ECEC institutions. The second key outcome were the policy recommendations to put forward concrete proposals and changes that need to be made at the political and national level for a real and widespread application of inclusive pre-school education. It is an analytically argued proposal of specific legislative measures for the real provision of inclusive education, the provision of a cohesive national curricular policy, and international analyzes of the implementation of inclusive education policies in relation to the national policies of the project participants. The third key output were the national workshops, which applied intellectual outputs in practice through direct multiplication with kindergarten teachers, who can transfer these outputs to the work of their institutions and help disseminate results through their initiatives and application of activities. Unfortunately, the planned workshops were not fully implemented in person, in two countries (Hungary and Slovakia) it was necessary to implement workshops online due to the pandemic situation. The participants of the workshops expressed their satisfaction with the created material and appreciated the possibility of an accessible website, which should also be used for further sharing of good practice within the inclusion in kindergartens.