In this part, we are going to discuss about the methods use in a few countries, what are the aims of each country and discover the importance of the early childhood education.
The early childhood education programme varies between countries. Three countries which are Nigeria, United States and Malaysia are selected to compare their modus operandi of this programme. Before, in Nigeria, when a new baby was born, everyone in the family had a responsibility to educate the baby. Now, preschool programme has been created and developed by the non-government organisations and wealthy individuals all over Nigeria. It targeted on children aged three to five years old. It was also fully recognised by the government of Nigeria. As for the United States, it has numerous childhood education programmes but the most famous one is the Head Start Project. It focuses on the children age four to five. This programme is developed by nearly all sectors so that poor and impoverished families can get benefits from it. It focuses more on the social development and academic skills. Like Nigeria, Malaysia also adapted the preschool programme as the main childhood education system. It is run by the government itself. This programme is for children age four to six. Some other programmes are also available in Malaysia. This is to give parents choices based on what they felt best for their children.
The aims of these programmes vary in each country. As in Nigeria, the objectives are to provide enough care and protection for the children as parents are working. Social interaction is also instilled to create a good interpersonal skill. Furthermore, healthy lifestyle and values are also taught in preschool in Nigeria. This is similar to Malaysia which aims for the disciplinary and attitude side of the children. They will know how to read, write and count at the end of the programme. The Head Start Programme is initially created for the poor people so that they can get proper education and better schooling. It serves to provide not only education but also health and nutrition.
Basically, all early childhood education programme of all over the world enclose the same value that will be instilled and possessed by the children. At this stage, rate of development of the children’s brain are at peak where they started to build up words as they are in the process of learning how to speak. As the fact, most of their time is spent with their parents. By this way, they learn and slowly respond to any of their parents’ act. Moreover, childhood education is nothing about failure as they do not understand what does the meaning brings to them. The character building process will occur and they will follow the way their parents, people and environment mould them. If we stop them from learning, they maybe retarded in some ways. It may not show on the physical aspect but maybe on emotional development or intelligence aspect. Like people say, to nurture is from young.
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