Who Is Klavdija Svet?

I'm Klavdija Svet — an early childhood educator, author, and founder of Kindergartens International Institution, based in Maribor, Slovenia. For more than twenty years I've worked alongside kindergarten teachers, and one truth has only grown clearer with time: the greatest investment a society can make isn't in technology — it's in the first five years of a child's life, and in the well-being of the educators who shape them.

That conviction is what led me to found Kindergartens International Institution in 2021. My mission is simple to state and endlessly rewarding to live out: help early childhood educators rise above every challenge, master their own well-being, and inspire the next generation to thrive.

The MAP Framework

Working directly with educators over the years — including one experience I carry with me always, guiding a teacher through stage 4 cancer as she found the strength not just to keep going, but to teach others how to thrive — showed me how much resilience the human spirit can hold when it has the right support. That's what led me to develop the MAP Framework: Mindset, Awareness, Purpose — a model for educators' personal and professional growth, built on the belief that teachers are quietly designing the future, one classroom at a time.

That framework became the backbone of my book, Elevate to Educate: Unleash Your Potential as an Early Childhood Educator, where I bring together neuroscience, real classroom experience, and practical strategy to help educators move from burnout to fulfilment.

Roots in Nature

Alongside my work with educators, I lead the development of forest kindergarten education here in Slovenia. In 2025, I designed a comprehensive forest kindergarten programme that is on its way to becoming one of Slovenia's officially recognised alternative early-childhood models, together with a one-year forest pedagogue training that I run with an international council of experts. I believe nature isn't just good for a child's development — it's a place of regeneration for the adults who care for them, too.

That belief is also what led me to bring together ten founders from five continents to establish the International Association for Nature-based Early Childhood (IANEC) — a global federation connecting forest kindergartens and practitioners worldwide, founded in Slovenia. I now serve as its Vice President, working to build shared quality standards and a global directory, so a movement that's strong in every country individually finally becomes strong together.

Closer to home, I serve as President of OMEP Slovenia, the Slovenian branch of the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education — a global children's-rights organisation founded in 1948 with consultative status at the UN — where I advocate for every child's right to quality early education.

Where My Curiosity Takes Me

I keep one foot firmly in the science: I follow research in neuroscience, quantum physics, and artificial intelligence closely, alongside what we're learning about nature's role in human development — and I look for honest, evidence-grounded ways to weave those insights into modern pedagogy. It's how I try to stay ahead of where early childhood education is heading, not just where it's been.

What I'm Building Toward

My mission is bold, and I say that without apology: I'm building a global movement of resilient educators who rise above every challenge and inspire the next generation to do the same. Every educator who thrives passes that thriving on to a room full of children — and every one of those children carries it forward. That, to me, is the real return on investment in early childhood.

Whether you're an investor who believes the future is built in the first five years of life, a school director who wants to protect your greatest asset — your staff — or an educator ready to rise: I'd love to talk about how we do this together.