Emphasis on education: Parents tend to send their children to private kindergartens if they can afford it.
Review on early childhood education must be based on proper principles, urge experts
PETALING JAYA: The review of the preschool education system by the government must be based on principles that promote quality preschool education, say experts.
Such principles include equity, non-discrimination, play-based learning, nurturing critical and innovative thinking and children’s rights spelt out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Malaysia acceded in 1995.
Early Childhood Care and Education Council founding president Datuk Dr Chiam Heng Keng warned that if the government did not get it right, a review may make things worse.
“The intention to review is noteworthy, as it is important to review the structure, system and curriculum periodically.
“However, I wonder what the intention is. It may be worse than the current one if it is not based on principles that promote quality preschool education,” she said in an interview yesterday.
Chiam, who is recognised internationally as an authority on early childhood care education in Malaysia, said the curriculum must contain the minimum and not maximum number of areas and subjects to allow exploration and thinking.
“This is because experiential learning is important and so is the outdoor curriculum, like learning about nature and the environment,” she added.
Since not all public preschools are of good quality, Chiam said parents who can afford them tend to send their children to better private kindergartens to get a good foundation in English and Chinese.
On the other hand, there are still parents who cannot afford preschools for their children.
“Remote and urban poor children don’t attend preschool, thus they are greatly disadvantaged when they go to primary schools.”
When asked, Chiam said the current government preschool syllabus is sufficient to teach children and prepare them for primary education, provided the teachers are doing the right things.“If children are linguistically able, confident and able to ask questions, seek information or perform self-learning and have thinking skills, they will be able to handle primary education well,” she said.
National Union of the Teaching Profession secretary-general Fouzi Singon said it was necessary to streamline public preschool education to convince more parents to send their children to public institutions rather than private ones.
“The quality and success of the children need to be taken care of so that the public educational system can prove that it also has the best curriculum compared with private kindergartens,” he said.
While the current syllabus is suitable, he said more can be done to improve children’s level of skills’ proficiency.
“A suitable study needs to be conducted when doing the streamlining by taking into account the intelligence, emotional and spiritual quotients to make learning in schools interesting for young children,” he said.
Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education chairman Mak Chee Kin said any new curriculum should cater to the needs of children and parents.
“I hope the new syllabus can be ‘colour blind’ and free from only religious subjects. If the syllabus and policy are still the same as national schools, I think many parents will opt out,” he said.
Mak also said that infrastructure and school facilities must also be upgraded to make teaching and learning more conducive.
On Jan 22, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim emphasised the need to review and enhance the preschool education system, including providing additional facilities and embracing digitalisation.
Two days later, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil announced plans to streamline the curriculum for preschools, with the Education Ministry taking the lead and the Islamic Development Department of Malaysia (Jakim) overseeing religious education.
Following that, PAS spiritual leader Hashim Jasin told the government to refrain from interfering with Pusat Asuhan Tunas Islam (Pasti) kindergartens, which have been established by the Islamist party since the 1980s.
At present, Malaysia has various preschools regulated by the Social Welfare Department under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry.
In the government sector, the Education, Rural and Regional Development as well as National Unity ministries are among the primary providers of public kindergartens for children aged four to six.
State religious departments, NGOs and the private sector also offer preschools.
Although these preschools are required to follow the National Preschool Curriculum as mandated by the National Education Act, some also offer different children learning models and programmes.
