Not all young children attend nurseries, childminders or other group settings before they start school, but many do. It is common for countries to set out a framework to guide practice for early years providers (such as nurseries) to follow. The conundrum regarding these frameworks for young children is that proving evidence of a causal link between early environments and later outcomes is very challenging scientifically. So how do governments choose what learning and development practices and goals to make mandatory for childcare providers? And is it realistic to expect early years providers to meet the legal requirements that these frameworks impose? We do not know which learning and development practices impact positively on later outcomes, and we certainly do not know if there is a one‐size‐fits‐all approach for an early years framework that is guaranteed to work.

中文翻译：

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社论：政府早期学习和发展框架是否基于证据？科学家的观点


并非所有幼儿在上学前都会去托儿所、托儿所或其他团体场所，但很多孩子都会这样做。各国通常会制定一个框架来指导早期教育提供者（例如托儿所）遵循的做法。这些针对幼儿的框架的难题在于，证明早期环境与后来的结果之间存在因果关系的证据在科学上非常具有挑战性。那么，政府如何选择对托儿服务提供者强制实施哪些学习和发展实践和目标呢？期望早期教育提供者满足这些框架所施加的法律要求是否现实？我们不知道哪些学习和发展实践会对以后的结果产生积极影响，我们当然也不知道是否有一种适合所有人的早期框架方法可以保证有效。