scholarly journals The status of early childhood education in Pakistan: Inside stories

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-317
Author(s):  
Mohammad Afzal Khan

This article analyses the status of early childhood education in Pakistan. The education systems in place in Pakistan are mainly framed within a didactic approach to teaching and learning, which addresses certain areas of education but does not teach the child as a whole. Domains of children’s holistic development such as social, ethical, cultural, intellectual, emotional and physical well-being, and some other key academic skills, are not fully covered. In this kind of education, students are taught to follow rules without question and do as instructed, which corresponds to an autocratic view of learning. In the context of early childhood education in Pakistan, teachers occupy dominant roles, which positions them as the imparters and sources of knowledge and children as dependent and the receivers of knowledge, rather than considering them as potential, curious and powerful learners with unlimited capabilities. The literature indicates that this approach to teaching and learning does not privilege the holistic development and well-being of children. In contrast, many developed countries use research-based contemporary approaches to children’s education and development, giving children a more central role in their learning to ensure that every child has the opportunity to develop to their full potential. This kind of approach reminds teachers to view all children not as needy or deficient individuals.

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-37
Author(s):  
Runumi Sharma ◽  
Mamta Aswal

Bertrand Russell’s educational thoughts significantly deal with reforming education for school going children and he also supported pre-primary education. He favored early childhood education for physical, intellectual and character development. His emphasis on character development of a child shows the significance of early years of life for development of an individual. This paper aims at exploring Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on early childhood education. It is an attempt to understand the significance of early childhood education for the holistic development of the children. Though there are early childhood education is prevalent in our country, but it was not mandatory to get early childhood education till the approval of National Education Policy (N.E.P., 2020). It has included early childhood education in compulsory school education for promoting better learning and well being of a child. It is a qualitative research in which historical method has been used where data has been collected from primary and secondary sources. The finding of the study shows that Bertrand Russell’sthought on early childhood education is relevant in present Indian context for developing good values, physical and mental development as well as in future learning. This shows that the encouragement to early childhood education and Bertrand Russell’s thoughts on early childhood education would be helpful for holistic development of children.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 637-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merete Moe ◽  
Anne B. Reinertsen

A threshold situation is a kind of crisis of, for example, deteriorating health. Fall 2014, a project was conducted, focusing on writing for well-being with a former employee and leader at an Early Childhood Education and Care, now on long-term sick leave. Here is her story and poem; her writings/Sis. Our stories and theory/practice/data/interpretive poems; our writings/Merete and Anne: Our companionship, company, and compassion: Sis/Merete/Anne.Com . We aim at Deleuze and Guattarian safespace writing. In modern working life participation, empowerment, governance, and self-leadership is considered vital for creating good psychosociological work environments. Foucault’s concept governmentality aims to elucidate how we are created as subjects, looking at how we are governed by others and by ourselves according to norms and expectations in organizations, society, and from ourselves. We think with poetry to open up, explore, and fabulate. We call it poeticalization and storying and work and worlds and words or rather work/world/word/making/melding/mattering/Sis/Merete/Anne: www.mmm.com .


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Abril-López ◽  
Dolores López Carrillo ◽  
Pedro Miguel González-Moreno ◽  
Emilio José Delgado-Algarra

This article presents the research results in relation to an interdisciplinary teaching innovation project—Teaching and Learning of Social Sciences and Teaching and Learning of Natural Sciences—with Early Childhood Preservice Teachers (ECPT) at the University of Alcalá (Spain) in the pandemic context by COVID-19 during 2020–2021 (N = 55): 52 women (94.55%) and 3 men (5.45%) from 20 to 22 years of age. The main research problem is to know if the ECPT improves the learning to learn competence after a challenge-based learning (CBL) linked to virtual tour in a museum. The main objective was to improve the learning to learn competence, during a virtual tour at the Community of Madrid Regional Archaeological Museum (MAR) (Alcalá de Henares, Spain) for a reflective training of students to understand problems of the past and present and future global challenges, promote collaborative and multidisciplinary work, and defend ethics and leadership. In order to ascertain the level of acquisition of this competence in those teachers who were being trained, their self-perception—pretest–posttest—of the experience was assessed through a system of categories adapted from the European Commission. ECPT worked, in small groups and using e/m-learning tools, ten challenges and one storytelling cooperatively with university teachers to solve prehistoric questions related to current situations and problems. Subsequently, two Early Childhood Education teachers from a school in Alcalá de Henares reviewed the proposals and adapted them for application in the classroom of 5-year-old boys and girls. The results show an improvement in this competence in Early Childhood Preservice Teachers: total score pre-post comparison paired-samples Wilcoxon test result shows a statistically significant difference (p > 0.001); an evaluation rubric verified the results of self-perception. Second, we highlight the importance of carrying out virtual museum tours from a challenge-based learning for the development of big ideas, essential questions, challenges, and activities on socioeconomic, environmental, and emotional knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Third, this experience shows the insufficient educational adaptation of the virtual museum tour to the Early Childhood Education stage from a technological and didactic workshops point of view, but there is a diversity of paleontological and archaeological materials and a significant sociocritical discourse.


2021 ◽  
pp. 183693912110572
Author(s):  
Sene Gide ◽  
Sandie Wong ◽  
Frances Press ◽  
Belinda Davis

This paper reviews current literature and research relevant to the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce in Australia, including data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Australia is a highly multicultural society, with one out of every three people born overseas. Anecdotally, the Australian early childhood sector is reported to have a highly multicultural workforce. Yet there is a noticeable lack of data and research concerning cultural diversity in the Australian ECE workforce. This paper reports on the data from the ABS-Census of Population and Housing (ABS-Census), the small body of literature on the CALD ECE workforce and literature pertaining to CALD in other Australian workforces to argue that more data and research is needed. Developing a richer understanding of the status, experience and contributions of CALD educators would enable the sector to recognise and support the potential benefits of such a workforce for children and families and social cohesion in Australia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (75) ◽  
pp. 958
Author(s):  
Iram Siraj ◽  
Steven J. Howard ◽  
Denise Kingston ◽  
Cathrine Neilsen‑Hewett ◽  
Edward C. Melhuish ◽  
...  

<p>Este estudo analisa as associações entre as pontuações provenientes de processos regulatórios de avaliação da qualidade da educação infantil australiana (Early Childhood Education and Care – ECEC) do National Quality Standard (NQS)2 e das duas escalas de avaliação de qualidade (SSTEW – Sustained Shared Thinking and Well Being; e ECERS-E – Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Extension). A amostra consiste em 257 unidades de ECEC em três estados australianos. Os resultados indicaram: associações positivas modestas entre as pontuações do NQS e das escalas; alguma especificidade entre as áreas de qualidade do NQS (aspectos do projeto e práticas pedagógicas para as crianças; relações com crianças) e de uma escala de avaliação – a SSTEW; variabilidade das pontuações das escalas de qualidade dentro de cada classificação do NQS; e atenuação dessas associações quando  o tempo  entre  as avaliações  ultrapassa  24 meses. As conclusões sugerem que o NQS e as escalas de avaliação indicam um núcleo comum de qualidade, mas capturam aspectos diferentes da qualidade, sugerindo que ambos poderiam ser usados para melhorar os padrões de qualidade nas pré-escolas australianas, onde as escalas de avaliação potencializam a qualidade ainda mais do que o NQS.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> National Quality Standard, ECERS-E, SSTEW, Qualidade, Pré-Escola, Regulamentação</p><p> </p><p><strong>Comparando índices regulatorios y no regulatorios de calidad de la educación infantil en Australia</strong></p><p>Este estudio analiza las asociaciones entre los puntajes provenientes de procesos regulatorios   de evaluación de la calidad de la educación infantil australiana (Early Childhood Education and Care – ECEC) del National Quality Standard (NQS) y de las dos escalas de evaluación de calidad (SSTEW – Sustained Shared Thinking and Well Being; y ECERS-E – Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Extended). La muestra consiste en 257 unidades de ECEC en tres estados de Australia. Los resultados indicaron: asociaciones positivas modestas entre los puntajes del NQS y de las escalas; alguna especificidad entre las áreas de calidad del NQS (aspectos del proyecto y prácticas pedagógicas para los niños; relaciones con niños) y una escala de evaluación –  la SSTEW; variabilidad de los puntajes de las escalas de calidad dentro de cada clasificación del NQS; y atenuación de dichas asociaciones siempre que el tiempo entre las evaluaciones supera los 24 meses. Las conclusiones sugieren que el NQS y las escalas de evaluación indican un núcleo común de calidad, pero capturan aspectos distintos de la calidad, lo que sugiere que ambos se podrían utilizar para mejorar los estándares de calidad en el sistema preescolar australiano, en el que las escalas de evaluación potencian todavía más la calidad que el NQS.</p><p><strong>Palabras clave:</strong> National Quality Standard, ECERS-E, SSTEW, Calidad, Sistema Preescolar, Reglamentación</p><p> </p><p><strong>Comparing regulatory and non-regulatory indices of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) quality in the Australian early childhood sector</strong></p><p>This study examines associations between Australia’s regulatory ratings of quality in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) – the National Quality Standard (NQS) – and two research-based quality rating scales. The analytic sample consisted of 257 ECEC services across three Australian states. Results indicated (1) modest positive associations between NQS ratings and scale scores; (2) some specificity between NQS quality areas (educational programs and practice; relationships with children) and one research scale – the Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Wellbeing (SSTEW) scale; (3) variability in quality scales scores within each NQS designation; and (4) mitigation of these associations when the time-gap between ratings exceeded 24 months. Findings suggest NQS and research scales tap some common core of quality, yet capture different aspects of quality, suggesting both could be used to raise standards of quality in Australian preschools, where the research scales potentiate raising quality to even higher levels than NQS.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: National Quality Standard, ECERS-E, SSTEW, Quality, Preschool, Regulation</p>


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