An interesting article highlighting the first years research into school readiness programmes in Victorian and Queensland preschools, child care centres and family daycare. " The national study of 2500 children found that on a scale of one to seven, the quality of instruction for four-year olds - regardless of whether they attend preschool, a childcare centre or family day care - averages a ranking of just two. This puts Australia on par with the US, which has an unregulated sector considered to be of poor quality, according to Professor Karen Thorpe, one of the study's research directors.
While children from NSW are not participating in the study, Professor Thorpe said the results provided an accurate national picture. Professor Thorpe said the overall results of the first year of the study revealed that early childhood education and care services in Australia were ''mediocre''.
''We don't have too many exceptionally bad services, but we don't have too many exceptionally good services either,'' Professor Thorpe said. She suggested this was because past early childhood sector regulations only required services to meet a minimum standard to be accredited.
Christine Legg, the chief executive of KU Children's Services, one of the oldest community-based preschool groups in NSW, said she was not surprised by the E4Kids findings.
''It's a really good reflection of the sector at the moment,'' Ms Legg said.
She said that some less qualified staff misinterpreted the previous preschool teaching guidelines as ''sit back and wait and the children will learn by osmosis''.
New federal government national quality standards came into effect on January 1 and include lifting the minimum standard of qualifications for staff, education benchmarks and better staff-to-child ratios.
Professor Thorpe said she hoped the new standards would improve quality in preschools.
''The new standards are asking us to work to optimal levels as aspirational. You'd hope this would shift quality,'' she said. ''Research suggests the early environment does make a difference to a child in the long term.''
2 comments:
Tess,
This was interesting. I would have some questions however, as I am wondering what criteria were used for evaluation of the preschools.
Was this a concern that children be able to read, and do math - "school readiness", rather than the play focused curriculum of early childhood education. Sometimes people will mistakenly observe a play based environment, and fail to see all the learning.
However, on the other hand, if the staff does not have training, it is truly possible that they are sitting back, and not doing their job.
Educators in a play based environment work very hard to provide the necessary environment, and constantly observe, and facilitate the learning of their children. However, they don't teach ABC's as such, and rarely use flash cards, or other kinds of rote learning. These kinds of learning are not developmentally
appropriate to the younger years.
Brenda
Hi Brenda, Yes your right there appear to be a number of questions the piece raises, however I don't know whether this is because information has been pared down by the writer or whether it relates to the study. I used to work with Chris Legg and can't see her putting her name to any study that was less than comprehensive and methodical. Having said that there are eight states and territories in Australia which up until now have had their own individual rules and practices surrounding early education and within those State groups there were bodies who were exempt or set their own standards. I don't think that it is coincidental that this study is being run in parallel with the Federal governments implementation of a national code of practice called the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF -see the tab above) which will be backed by legislation introduced this year. The practice appears to be balanced and recognises the benefits of learning through unstructured indoor/outdoor play and the development of emergent child focussed interests.
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