Abstract:

The contemporary paradigm of early childhood education and care emphasizes the importance of quality of teachers' professional competences. Having responsibility not only for taking care of children's physical health and creating a safe environment, teachers today face great challenges in trying to implement a contemporary paradigm creating an encouraging environment that is open for children's active engagement and competent decision-making, supporting children's individual competencies, together with taking special care for children with special needs and their interaction within everyday activities with their peers.
Early childhood teacher's attitudes, professional beliefs, pedagogical knowledge and competences are the ones that have the greatest influence in helping a child with special educational needs to achieve its greatest potential within the inclusive environment.
Moreover, in order for the early childhood teacher and insurance of its professional development, there is a need for connection between his initial education alongside with the continuing professional education. Results show that when working in an inclusive environment, early childhood teachers often doubt their competences in the field of working with children with special educational needs, as well as in communicating with parents since they believe that the quality partnership with parents includes more than only providing information in regards to children's current achievements.
Furthermore, due to the recent changes in everyday work when kindergarten activities and interactions found its place online, research results also indicate that early childhood teachers didn't feel they were adequately educated and prepared for competently working in an online environment.
The feeling of doubt and incompetence in regards to early childhood teachers' competences stems from their belief that the knowledge they attained within their higher education is not sufficient - they feel there are certain insecurities in their practical work, since most of their knowledge is theory-based, and they are missing practical educational guidelines and training.
Taking into account all of the above mentioned, since quality within early childhood institution requires the highest level of motivation, perseverance and work ethics, it is with no doubt necessary for early childhood teachers to feel secure in their everyday work and interested in further professional training.
In this paper, we will outline the trends of continuing education and training within Croatian early childhood educational system, alongside with the review of current research results in regards to professional development and competencies of early childhood teachers, with the special focus on the areas teachers feel are neglected within their education and training.

Keywords:

Early childhood education, early childhood teacher, professional development.