Families are satisfied with the eVaka early childhood education system
Families are largely satisfied with the electronic eVaka system for early childhood education, according to a survey conducted by Espoo Early Childhood Education. In particular, the system has been praised for its features for reporting a child’s absences and reviewing the attendance calendar.
Parents and guardians in Espoo actively responded to a survey conducted in January, which examined, among other things, families’ satisfaction with the early childhood education eVaka system and the service agreement process.
Customer satisfaction with the electronic eVaka system used in Espoos early childhood education services was surveyed at this scale for the first time. In total, 1843 responses were received. There were also many free-form responses.
Parents and guardians are mostly satisfied with the system and its functionality
Among the respondents, 26 per cent indicated that they use eVaka on a daily basis. The majority of the respondents, 69 per cent, said that they use it weekly.
The respondents found eVaka to be an easy-to-use and efficient system.
“So far, eVaka has worked as it should for our family. It is easy and clear to use,” one of the respondents said.
“Easy and pleasant to use. Sufficiently simple in its functions, and sending messages is easy,” said another.
Respondents were most satisfied with the ability to report a child’s absences through the eVaka system. Reporting absences received an average score of 4.4 (on a scale of 1–5) from respondents. Satisfaction with reviewing the attendance calendar (4.2) and reporting attendance time was also high (4.05).
Attendance times result in challenges
The satisfaction of the respondents with editing the reported attendance times was, however, slightly lower than the satisfaction with other features (average 3.5). Based on the free-form responses, the fact that a child’s attendance must be reported by 18:00 on Monday of the previous week and the inability to edit the time after that was found to be difficult.
Espoo’s early childhood education services are aware that it can sometimes be difficult for guardians to plan the life of a family with children and its many variables for very many days in advance.
“We understand the challenges with reporting attendance times but, due to the planning of staff shifts, it is essential that our units are informed sufficiently early on about each child’s upcoming attendances,” says Systems Specialist Sari Kuittinen.
On the other hand, Kuittinen has good news for all the respondents whose free-form responses indicated a wish for the possibility of reporting attendances or absences for several days or children at a time.
“This function is already available in eVaka. You simply select more children for the notification or move the end date. If necessary, you can find instructions for submitting attendance notifications on our website or the Espoo eVaka YouTube channel.”
Strong authentication when logging in was felt to be cumbersome
The challenges of logging in with strong authentication also emerged as an issue in the open feedback from guardians.
“eVaka must take into account data protection regulations regarding the processing of sensitive data, which is why some functions require strong authentication,” says Systems Specialist Sirpa Koljonen.
“However, when logging in with a username, the user can utilise the phone’s features to save the password.”
Communication at eVaka garnered praise but also criticism
In the free-form responses, many people mentioned that eVaka’s messaging feature is convenient and necessary.
“A good information channel, as you always receive information about new releases via email. Works well,” one of the respondents commented.
Some of the free-form responses hoped for the possibility to indicate the name of the child or group in email alerts from eVaka.
"Unfortunately, this is not possible either for reasons related to data protection. That said, in the email alerts derived from announcements sent by the City of Espoo, the heading of the message in question is displayed,” says Koljonen.
In this case, the email will read “You have received a new bulletin in eVaka from Espoon kaupunki - Esbo stad - City of Espoo with title "Municipal Notice to Guardians.”".
Instead, messages sent by the child’s group show the sender but no heading: “You have received a new message in eVaka from Vallipuisto day care centre - Auringot.”
There was also feedback that there were too many messages.
“This feedback has been heard, and we have already reduced the amount of communications. We are also trying to avoid message congestion through better planning, but there may still be occasional peaks, as eVaka is used to send messages to homes not only from each child’s day care centre but also from the early childhood education administration,” Koljonen says.
The survey also examined satisfaction with the service agreement process.
In addition to eVaka, the survey also examined satisfaction with the service agreement process. This specifically refers to the discussion that guardians have with the head of the day care centre in question when a child starts early childhood education. The purpose of the discussion is to prepare a service agreement and convey information. The service agreement records, among other things, the child’s early childhood education period.
The guardians who responded to the survey partially or completely agreed that they received enough information from the staff to determine the early childhood education time during the service agreement process (average score 3.9). The directors of the early childhood education unit also guided the guardians in completing the service agreement (3.4).
The guardians who had engaged in a service agreement discussion with a director, assistant director or deputy director felt that the cooperation was smooth (4.5). These respondents also partially or completely agreed that they received sufficient information about the content of the agreement (4.35) and the use of eVaka (4.15).
Overall, guardians were generally satisfied with both eVaka and the service agreement process, even though there was room for improvement. According to system experts, customer feedback is valuable and all comments have been read carefully.
“Many thanks to the respondents! We would like to thank the families for their feedback and good cooperation! Through cooperation, we ensure a smooth day-to-day life for everyone,” Kuittinen says.