15 October 2009
All eyes on preschool education…
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Child Development; Preschool .
Politics and by-elections grab so much of our attention some of us may have missed this remark by the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who is also our Education Minister. It appears the Ministry of Education is concerned that a mere 67% of children starting Year One have had a preschool education.
A news report had the DPM saying MOE was looking to increase preschool enrolment up to 87% by 2012. One way of doing it would be to make preschool education “a part of the education system.”
This was a follow-up to an off-the-cuff comment a month earlier that the Education Ministry may want all pre-schools to be absorbed into the national education system – take a deep breath now – to boost young children’s grasp of English.
“My idea is that we should make learning of English at pre-schools a thrust in the early education process,” he said.
Note that this came after the government announced it was reversing its 6-year old English for Science and Math policy.
It is not clear how preschool is to be absorbed into the school system or whether it would mean mandatory preschool for all Year One children; but it is this sort of news that raises red flags.
I’m sure the MOE means well. After all, the rest of the developed world is ahead of Malaysia with regard to education and we’re following their lead. Should preschool become mandatory, Malaysia would be in good company with countries that have lowered school starting age (England, Scotland, Netherlands) or have integrated early childcare and preschool education with compulsory primary schooling (Sweden, Greece, Northern Ireland). Sweden for instance is often held up as an exemplar with the highest quality of early childcare and preschool education offered by a state, including a well-developed after-school childcare system for school-age children (well, so UNICEF declares).
Is this supposed to make us feel good? 
It might interest some of you to know that I previously opposed talks of mandatory preschool in an NST article I wrote way back in 2000! Looking at it again, my views have not changed. Of course, since then more research have surfaced questioning the mistaken notion of separating children from their own parents at an ever younger and younger age. The prospect is just too horrible to imagine for parents who have had to deal with 2 or 3-year old kids traumatised by preschool education! Whatever happened to schooling readiness?
A UC Berkeley/Stanford report in particular finds that the earlier a child enters a preschool center, the slower his or her pace of social development. Cognitive skills in pre-reading and math do improve when children first enter a preschool program (at ages two and three) but this happens to the detriment of social and emotional development.(Read more here)
I do believe there are many ECE teachers who are wonderfully committed to helping young children succeed, and I say keep up the good work. Yes, make schooling – preschool, playschool, kindergarten, primary school, etc – affordable and accessible. Do everything possible to ensure care and education is available especially to at-risk children and disadvantaged families. But give parents a choice. Our children don’t need a nanny when they already have their own mother and father.
Related posts on preschool and early education:
A child’s work is play
Preschool for a headstart?
Kicked out of kindy
Life in the fast lane
Finding balance in a hurried world
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2 Comments so far...
James Yuen Says:
16 October 2009 at 12:14 pm.
It’s about money. I am sure that someone must have noticed how many nurseries and kindergartens there are around and how much business they do. Imagine if the government states “nationalizing” all the private nurseries and kindergartens, or setting up their own and making the private ones more expensive to get licensing for. How much money will they make?
It’s also about control. the earlier they get children in their system, the more they can instill their indoctrination of the political views.
In fact, kindergarten actually is a word from the Prussian Empire (now part of Germany) where the state basically indoctrinated children into becoming good soldiers and citizens for the state.
David BC Tan Says:
17 October 2009 at 12:25 am.
James – A look at Wikipedia reveals this:
“Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (or Froebel) (April 21, 1782 – June 21, 1852) was a German pedagogue, a student of Pestalozzi who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique needs and capabilities. He created the concept of the “kindergarten”, and also coined the word now used in German and English.”
“Friedrich Fröbel opened the first kindergarten on 28 June 1840 to mark the four hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of movable type. Fröbel created the name and the term Kindergarten for the Play and Activity Institute, which he had founded in 1837 in the village of Bad Blankenburg.”
“Fröbel’s idea of the kindergarten found appeal, but its spread in Germany was thwarted by the Prussian government, whose education ministry banned it on 7 August 1851 as “atheistic and demagogic” for its alleged “destructive tendencies in the areas of religion and politics”. Other states followed suit.”
Look for entries under KINDERGARTEN, and FRIEDRICH FROBEL
Claims of a connection between the army and state education have often been made (by John Gatto among others) and here’s an interesting write up – http://www.sntp.net/education/school_state_3.htm
David