Abstract:

In addition to the essential tasks of child care during early childhood, the curriculum in the nursery group includes satisfying and supporting emotional, social, cognitive, physical and early speech development in children. The educator should continuously create a quality environment by observing and listening to the child and his needs. The learning conditions in the environment must encourage the child to be independent, they need to be dynamic, derive from the child’s interests and constantly stimulate his potentials. It is a process often characterized by numerous challenges encountered by educators on a daily basis. Therefore, this research aims to examine what educators in Croatia, who currently work or have worked in the nursery, consider the challenges and problems they encounter in their educational work and what solutions to these challenges they suggest. Data were collected by interviewing educators in focus groups, after which the interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the qualitative content analysis.

The sample included 12 educators from the city of Rijeka, Croatia, divided into 3 focus groups of 4 educators, of different ages and different length of service spent in the nursery. The sample was selected using the "snowball" technique. All three focus groups were held during July 2020.

The challenges of working in the nursery that educators most often mention are related to too many children in the group, which brings additional challenges such as the inability to meet the needs of all children, educator’s negative feelings of dissatisfaction, frustration, etc. Furthermore, most other challenges are related to interpersonal relationships in the institution, whether it is communication and cooperation with parents, professional team, educators with each other or the management of the institution.

During the discussions in focus groups, the educators referred to some other problems in the educational work in the nursery, although the topic or goal of the research was not to discuss them. Nevertheless, we will look at them as well, since they also certainly affect the quality of the educational process in nurseries. According to the focus group participants, a big problem is working with children with disabilities because they are usually not referred for diagnosis and identification of difficulties, and consequently, with early intervention is usually late or it is completely absent. Also, the research participants state the problem in communication, and the lack of support in their work with children with disabilities by the professional team.

Finally, it can be concluded that the educational work is generally very demanding and challenging, dynamic and unpredictable, especially when it comes to educational work with young children under the age of three. What is important, and what the research participants also point out, is the readiness of educators to think about challenges, openness to learning and improving themselves and their own practices, perseverance and willingness to cooperate that will enable all stakeholders to overcome challenges and achieve a common goal – welfare of children.

Keywords:

Challenges of working in nursery, early childhood education and care, early and preschool teachers, nursery.