Abstract:

The quality of preschool institutions are determined by their physical features, applied curriculum and environment that the school is situated. This study aims to evaluate sustainable development perspectives in preschool institutions. In this study, a surveillance- based descriptive method was used. This study was carried out in 33 state preschools in Kyrenia district of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC. Environment Rating Scale for Sustainable Development in the Early Childhood- ERSSDEC was used as a data collection tool. The scale was developed to evaluate the pre-school educational institutions from the perspective of sustainable development. The scale consists of totally 41 items, including sub-dimensions as environmental (15 items), economic (13 items) and sociocultural sustainability (13 items). It was determined that there was high compliance among experts regarding the content validity of the Turkish version of the scale and reliability studies indicated high inter-rater reliability. As a result of the analysis of preschool institutions, it was found that those preschool institutions taken into evaluation could only meet a minimum level of economic and socialcultural subscales of proficiency levels. As a consequence, it is possible to draw the conclusion that the evaluated pre-school education institutions do not possess sustainable development perspectives.