The importance of the early childhood education and care of Hungarian ethnic minority groups in Romania, Slovak Republic and Serbia

This chapter focuses on early childhood education and care (ECEC) for three Hungarian minority groups of people in Romania, Slovak Republic, and Serbia. The primary focus is on kindergarten-age children; however, it is important to state that the early childhood provision in these countries is divided between bölcsőde (nursery), services from three or six months to three years old, and óvoda or napközi (kindergarten), from three to six or seven year-old children. This binary approach to the ECEC was introduced in the late 1940s, where both nurseries and kindergartens were financed either by the state or by the local authority except for the religious nurseries, which were financed by the church. Traditionally, children in the nursery were cared for and educated by the kisgyermeknevelő (infant and early childhood educator), while in the kindergartens this role has been undertaken by the óvónő (female pre-primary pedagogue or kindergarten teacher)