The paper provides a comparative analysis of establishing quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the Republic of Ireland and the Republic of Serbia. The analysis is done through desk research of documents dealing with the standards of quality. The following dimensions were compared: 1) The way of preparing and adopting documents; 2) The function of standards; 3) Structure and content of the documents; 4) Evaluation of quality. The comparison of understanding and the purpose of ECEC standards in the two countries has shown the difference between the discourse of building quality and discourse of quality assurance by standardization as the external measure of quality. Whilst in Ireland, the evaluation of the quality is seen as the process of re-consideration and building quality, in Serbia, this is a one off "act" of measuring and control. [For the complete Volume 13, Number 1 proceedings, see ED568595.]