Throughout the years, early education is a concept that has expanded all across Malaysia dramatically.
The aim is to create an educational system that is so proficient that children who go through the system come out as well-equipped and informed individuals who are able to take on the 21st century.
Certainly, Starway Professional, with its maxim ‘Transform Lives’, is keen on taking up the role to produce children who grow up to be the ones who excel in the fast-paced digital age.
‘Early Education’ is for children from the time they are born to the age of six. Instead of daycare centres, most parents prefer to enrolling their children in early educational institutions.
These institutions are either funded by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) or by government agencies. However, in Malaysia, early childhood education is not part of the formal educational system.
And because of this, it gives early childhood education providers, especially the private ones, the flexibility to create and use the most suitable syllabus for teaching purposes.
Usually, early education is provided in nurseries, sort of an advanced daycare centre, or preschools – like kindergarten.
Nurseries are usually created within homes and cater a group of 1-20 children at a time usually under the age of 5. In contrast, preschools are more formal and based in centres for education.
They cater to a large number of children usually within the ages of 5 to 6 years. Thus, as a parent, it’s best to enrol your children in an early education system before they go into a formalized educational system.
The types of early education system as further divided on two basis, other than age.
Private Early Education
Private early educational nurseries, kindergartens and preschools are not funded by government agencies or NGOs and instead charge the parents a standard fee for enrolling their children.
These fees are what allows them to have better facilities than public preschools. Due to the fact that there is no formal curriculum set by the government for early education, private programmes extend the duty to select the curriculum to the parents.
Parents can decide on what should be taught to the children as well as the medium of instruction that should be used.
In majority of the cases, the teachers employed by the private sector of early education have international certifications and qualifications.
Thus, they are able to focus more on the cognitive development of the children from such an early stage in life. This adheres to the needs of the parents that revolves around creating a balance between social developments along with real-world education.
Additionally, these preschools are also licensed by the Ministry of Education which gives them a more formal standing in comparison to public institutions.
Run by private organizations, private early education focuses more on enrichment with programmes on dancing, singing, brain development and drama taking centre stage.
Public Early Education
One of the distinguishing features of public early education programmes is that they are fully funded by the government agencies or NGOs.
Majority of the teachers that teach within these nurseries, kindergartens and preschools are often locally qualified. Thus, they can fulfil the requirements of parents like equipping their children socially, teaching them about cultural values and the basics of a Malaysian society.
There is no specific curriculum for early education so the focus always remains on how the teachers can train and educate children to function optimally in the 21st-century society.
In a Nutshell
Early childhood education is the most important part of education in one’s life because that’s the time when the brain grows the fastest. It’s also the most critical age when most perception and attitude are formed.
There is no denying that all parents want the best for their children, especially when it comes to education. To find out more about early childhood education for your child, feel free to get in touch with Starway Professional.