Erica's Early Learning

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Getting to Know Your International Contacts—Part 2

According to my international contact Emil, the European countries have been largely successful in maintaining public pre-primary education for 3-6s, with high enrolment rates. Yet, the quality and outreach of these services could, in many instances, be greatly improved. Nations vary in the extent to which they view the quality of national early education services as a critical responsibility to be supported by adequate funding, research, quality initiatives and the continued training of educators. In purely economic/educational terms, the return on investments in young children is potentially great. Such returns are foregone when societies do not provide comprehensive supports to families with young children and, in particular, fail to ensure a good start in life for excluded children.

The additional information about issues of equity and excellence that I acquired from my international sources was teacher-guided and collaborative playful learning interactions with relevant content (e.g. emergent academic language, literacy, numeracy, science, citizenship) is particularly promising in this regard, avoiding two often observed but much less adequate approaches in early childhood care and education: the ‘drill and kill’ approach, when the contents and learning formats of primary school are simply copied, and the ‘laisser faire’ approach, when the curriculum predominantly consists of free activities without teacher guidance.

Reference

Emil (personal communication, February 1, 2012) noted her personal experience with Issues related to excellence and equity in the early childhood field.

5 comments:

  1. I think it's great that public education is offered for 3 year olds. I am guessing that it is not compulsory since your contact mentioned high enrollment rates. Do you know if it is available for all children or must the family qualify in some way like here?

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    1. Dear Christine,

      No, it's not available for all children, but they are working on trying to make it available for all children. They have learned through research that experience in the early years has profound consequences for later life.

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  2. Hi Erica...First and foremost KUDOS! for establishing an e-mail contact. I made several attempts to various organizations and got no where. Second, how important is early childhood education compared to the U.S.? Also, as Christine asked, is it available for all or must families qualify?

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    1. Dear TF,

      They believe that early childhood eduaction provides the best return in human capital development and a solid foundation for success. As for the availabiliy, no, it's not available for all children, but they are working on trying to make it available for all children. They have learned through research that experience in the early years has profound consequences for later life. So, they are working on trying to make it available for all children.

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    2. Erica,

      I think it is sad that quality care and education is not available to all....investing in our youth will have positive long term effects, but I am happy to hear that they are working on a solution to the problem by trying to make it available for all children.

      Nicky

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