Early Childhood Education in Pakistan free essay sample

What is early childhood education? American Academy of Paediatrics defines 1-5 years of age, other defines as birth to 8 years. Children’s bodies and brains grow rapidly during this period of life. Many skills and milestones such as language, physical and social developments are expected to reach at this stage. Importance of early childhood development In the first few year, more than 100 billion neurons are formed, they are just like milky way. This process is called neuron proliferation that is about 250,000 neurons are born every minute. Neurogenesis is the formation and development of nerve cells. Synaptogenesis is the forming of synapses, begins early in prenatal life, as soon as neurons begins to evolve. Background Historically, formal early childhood education has arisen in response to the needs of middle and upper income group of developed countries. Later on it became a part of the educational system in the Third World. Robert Myers (1992) in his book Twelve Who Survive emphasized that early childhood development is a continuous process it begins from the prenatal period and extends through the entire period of childhood. Therefore, Robert Myers suggests that early childhood care and education should fulfill the needs of the children from birth to eight years. In recent years, behavioral scientists have attempted to understand the developmental process of the young children. Today educational program for young children are also responding to their psycho-social needs. To further probe into the developmental process of the young children, numerous workshops of the experts were conducted in various parts of the world. The major findings of these workshops in a nutshell are: Many child care centers located all over the world do not adequately focus on child development as a whole, instead custodial care is all that is offered. The sole focus of these centers is on preparation for primary schools. To improve the situation, few countries took the initiatives for example; the government of India established community centers in 1975 to help young children develop as a whole. These community centers do not only fulfill the educational needs of the children but also look after the health and fulfill the psycho-social needs of the children. In Pakistan too an awakening has occurred about early childhood education. The government has also included kachi peheli and paki peheli in their educational plan. Many private organizations established preschools in various parts of Pakistan. Most of the preschools in Pakistan concentrate on the educational needs of the children and often do not address the psycho-social needs of the children (Educational Department of Sindh and Teacher Resource Centre1999). Another aspect related to early childhood education is the gender issue. By the time a child reaches school age she /he is firmly rooted in a gender identity. Archer, (1985) reported that: â€Å"From the age of fifteen months children could distinguish between male and female and gender appropriate toys†. The gender differences create barriers in the processes of full development of a child, which is one of the major aims of early childhood care and development. In Pakistan gender differences are loudly expressed in daily life. According to one of the studies, nine thousand girls between the ages of five to fourteen are found on streets; rag picking or begging only in urban Punjab. Right now Pakistan is at interesting cross roads with respect to girls education. The social and cultural norms on gender may not have changed much but it has incrementally been reconciled to the needs of globalization and developmental norms where girls rights to education are non-negotiable and non-discriminatory. General †¢ To evaluate the early childhood education in Pakistan against a set of predetermined parameters. †¢ To study the difference in the attitude towards young girls and young boys i. e. age three to five years in family, school and society. It has been observed that there are very few private early childhood education schools in Pakistan. These schools have been opened on the initiatives of some local people and they also have a commercial base. It has been observed that the school fees are so high that the parents of urban and especially of rural areas of Pakistan can not send their children to these schools. Secondly, there are government schools which ensure that the children in kachi peheli be prepared for class one. They do not look after the developmental needs of children (see the lists of schools which were visited and the list of the leaders met during the study). I found that early childhood education is expensive and therefore inaccessible for many children therefore deprived of early childhood education. Child Rights †¢ Convention on the Rights of the Child – Each child should receive good parenting, early stimulation, nurturing care, primary health care, essential micro nutrients in a balanced and nutritious diet, and a safe and clean environment. Early childhood education in Pakistan’s context Over the past 25 years, Pakistan has achieved impressive macro-economic gains, reflected in an annual GDP growth rate averaging between 5 to 7 percent. But less successful into improved human development for the majority of the population. As evidence by its ranking of 135 out of 177 countries on the 2005 Human Development Index (UNDP, Human Development Report, 2005) Conclusion A critical analysis of the study and its findings have an important implication for educators, parents, teachers, community leaders and researchers who are concerned with the planning and implementation of early childhood education in Pakistan and else where. All of them can benefit from the comprehensive framework of the study, consisting of eleven dimensions, a set of four stakeholders, twenty data gathering instruments and about twenty five case studies. This framework built around â€Å"Roberts Stakes Countenance Model† served as countenance, a technique of qualitative assessment of intentions and actual happening. The evaluation of Early Childhood Education in Pakistan through this countenance framework identifies following parameters of the system. Early Childhood Education need to correlate practices with attainable goals. Early childhood Education in rural schools needs to make efforts to develop activity based leaning and teaching. †¢ Early Childhood Education is a mean to satisfy psycho-social needs of children †¢ Activity based learning is crucial in Early Childhood Education program. †¢ Equal treatment of boys and girls is necessary to remove gender biases in the society. †¢ Training of teachers is n ecessary to develop perception of objectives and skills for effective delivery of Early Childhood Education. Parents’ involvement and partnership is essential to supplement school efforts at home and in the community. †¢ Parents and teachers awareness in gender issues is an important factor †¢ Academic achievement and psych-social development of children who attended ECE is rated higher than those who did not. To conclude the following aspects of the system deserves consideration for initiating improvement in Early Childhood Education in Pakistan. The purpose of this study was to evaluate early childhood education in Pakistan. For this purpose Robert Stake’s Countenance Model was adapted to document and report the findings in the qualitative form (Stakes, R 1975) the study covered early childhood education institutions in Pakistan and samples from urban and rural areas of Pakistan were selected. The researcher interviewed and observed the participants in the field and recorded the data. The evaluation of early childhood education in Pakistan through this study identified that: early childhood education practice in Pakistan should correlate with attainable goals. Equal treatment of boys and girls by adults is necessary to remove the biases in society. Parents and teachers partnership is essential to achieve the desired results in early childhood education. Early childhood education delivery system is inadequate. Many children of Pakistan are deprived of early childhood education. Low cost and affordable early childhood programs should be available in urban and rural areas of Pakistan. Thus it has been recommended that early childhood education should be a part of educational development program of Pakistan. For this purpose political awareness and commitment on the part of government and educationists should also be developed. To break the tradition of teaching children in piecemeal, an integrated curriculum should be developed to look after the holistic development of children. The term early childhood education emphasizes the comprehensive nature of development, which takes place before the child goes to school. It is concerned with physical, linguistic, social, cognitive and educational growth of a child in its first five to six years (Baker, 1987) The Overall purpose of this study was two folds: