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FACULTY OF EDUCATION & LANGUAGES

SEMESTER : JANUARY 2012

HBEC1103

COURSE : BACHELOR OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

COURSE TITLE : INTRODUCTION TO EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

MATRICULATION NO. IDENTITY CARD NO. TELEPHONE NO. E-MAIL LEARNING CENTRE

: : : : :

870428495956001 870428495956 012-8248240 my2_r@yahoo.co.uk OUM KOTA KINABALU

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CONTENT

PAGE

Introduction First Issue Second Issue Third Issue Fourth Issue Fifth Issue Conclusion References

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INTRODUCTION This article is written to discuss on the importance of how contemporary issues can affect young children in Malaysia. There are five main contemporary issues that can influence children and families in Malaysia will be discussed through out this article. The issues are, the changing units in Malaysia, changes in early childhood care providers, changes in early childhood education, government policies that affect children directly or indirectly and social issues such as housing, poverty and wellness and healthy living especially in Malaysia. These contemporary issues are very important for the development of children because it can help us to understand and create better environment for the childhood education as the issues can affect either positively or negatively the outcomes of the children life in the future. George (2012) said that, to achieve the goal in early childhood education, the first thing to focus is to provide the childrens wants, and the only way to know is through their families. That is the reason the changes in family units will be discusses as the main issues in this article. Thus, we will also compared the issue with the same issue happens in the United States. As the families units are changing, we can see the change effect on changes happen in early childhood care providers and the childhood early education. This is because, also according to George (2012), when family units are changing, it changes the structure and the role of traditional families as there is single-parent, stepfamilies, more parents are working and their grandparents and non-family members become parents to the children. That is why; the care providers and early childhood education will always changes accordingly to provide the needs of the changing family units. We will also discussing on how the Malaysian government policies affect children directly or indirectly as the education in Malaysia especially the government has rank the preschool education in first out of four Sub-National Key Result Area (NKRA) for Educational Minister (Noriati et al, 2010). This automatically shows that early childhood education in Malaysia is been taken seriously by the Malaysian government. Other policies and programs that been implement such as PERMATA or other programs that still under development by the government will be further discuss through out this article. The last issue that will be discussed in this article is on the social issues including poverty, housing, wellness and healthy living. This is mainly because of social issues are the main factors that influences the poor result of the
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children in school and also can put their life in jeopardizing as Malaysians come from diverse background, it will cause different practices in the social circle and will affect the way the children learn. FIRST ISSUE According to Walker and Crocker (1988) in Siti Zaharah (2000) stated that a family system is any social unit which all members are closely attached to each other and governed by a family rules. George (2012) also stated that families are always changing according to time as a result of social issues that occurred. In Malaysia the changes in family unit can be seen on the increasing rate of working mothers each year because of the high life styles demand. According to Nasruddin and Johari (2009) there are 70 percent mothers with children less than 12 years of age are working full-time. This situation occurred started earlier in 1990s when the economic development encourage migration of population to urban areas and as a result there are a massive increasing rates in divorce, child abandonment, incest, teenage pregnancies and missing adolescents. (Malaysia, 1996 Social Welfare Department, 1996 in Nasruddin and Johari 2009). This prove that, early childhood educations are important to meet the needs of this parents by providing them with better learning environment that can involved the working parents indirectly through the childrens learning. Compared to the United States, according to George (2012), nearly 64 percent of the working mothers in the United States are having children under 6 years old. This is because, the economy development in the United States are earlier and far more advanced than us in Malaysia. That is why, in United States there are already so many programs and studies that involved childhood education, such as The Childrens Defense Fund (CDF) that help develops and implement public Policy for children and their families. Other important part in this issue is to know how to cooperate with single parents that can helps children in their childhood learning. Single parents in Malaysia according to article Positive Parenting (not stated) are mostly single mother where in year 2000 only, there were 126, 810 of themes. Single-parenthood occurred because of these several factors that are divorce, death of spouse, and abandonment. Single parents are having more responsibility because they have to support their children and family on their own especially single mother. Single mother that working extra hours will do not have time to checked on their childrens learning especially
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homework. According to psychiatrist Dr Yen in Positive Parenting (not stated), said that this factors will influence the academic achievements of the children. Thus, it is important to have programs that can support single parenting by providing them with knowledge on to manage their situation accordingly in order to help their childrens learning especially in the early stage of the children age. In United States, according to George (2012) single parenting become a trend because of some factors such are liberalized adoption procedures and there are increasing number of people that supporting single parents in the country. Besides that, there are many institutions such as school where single parent seeking for helps in practices parenting. For example, at Mapelbrook Elementary School as stated in George (2012), the early child professional provides seminars to help single parents to gain skill and knowledge to help the childrens learning and social growth. SECOND ISSUE As been told in the introduction, the childhood care providers are changing to provide the needs of the changing families roles and structures. In Malaysia, the early child cares services are only established in the late 1970s because of the working mother at that time are 31 percent and they really need the child care service to assist them (Heng, 2008). Before that there are other different care providers such as nurseries, child care services that operated in their own home and so on. During these early child care providers there are no standards and regulations on how to manage the quality of child care providers. This is because, according to the findings of the survey done by Ministry of Social Welfare Services (1983) in Heng (2008), the child care providers are not provide a good place and unsafe environment to take care the children. Other than that, they also found out the children care takers do not have the qualifications or have a little knowledge about the early child education. The learning methods are also not stimulating enough to stimulate the children environment to grow intellectually, socially and emotionally. After the survey results, that is when government established the Child Care Centre Act (Act 308) in 1984. In the act, all care child providers must be register and appointed person must monitor the welfare of the children. The care takers also need to attend courses of early childhood education to understand the children mind based on the Alternative Child Care Projects (1984-1992) funded by Bernard Van Leer Foundation. Nowadays, it obvious that
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working parents especially in urban area really want the best for their children in the child care places as their have to pay a lot for the services. To provide a good services to the parents who willing to pay more for their children welfare, there are many child care places are being establish such as TASKA, TABIKA KEMAS, TABIKA Perpaduan, preschool and other private nurseries. Good and healthy environment can promote the physical needs, healthy and also can help children to learn better. In comparison to early childhood education in the United States, they are earlier to have child care providers called kindergarten. Kindergarten is the name gave by Friederich Froebel for his system of education for children at the ages three to six. The first kindergarten opened in the United States is in 1856 by Margarethe Schurz. (George 2012). This is shows that they are advanced and become the pioneer in early childhood education and other European country such as England and Scotland. THIRD ISSUE According to Gordon and Brown in Irene (2008), the definition of early childhood education is group setting that intended to effect the developmental changes in children from birth to entering the first grade in school. Early childhood education in Malaysia is started from the child care center until there are church who establish kindergarten on the 1950s. The education emphasized only by the late of 50s and early 60s. The curriculum on that time only emphasized on 3M (read, write, calculate). After that the government realize the important of early childhood education for children to have better achievement in school and by 1969, KEMAS had been established. Followed by FELDAs preschool education center in 1970, TABIKA established in 1976 and during 1980, RISDA establish preschool for children f rubber planters. The latest program that promotes early children education and care in Malaysia is the Permata Negara Program. This program is been introduce by Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, who is the wife of Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. The first pilot of Permata Negara Program Center was launched in May 2007. (Heng, 2008). Permata is designing the curriculum for the children age of five and below. The curriculum will be modified based on the Pen Green Curriculum in Corby. Other than that, government also promoting the early childhood education
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in preschool through KSPK (Kurikulum Standard Prasekolah Kebangsaan) in 2010. This new found curriculum is much more holistic and help the preschool children learn better. The importance of preschool also can be seen from the sub-NKRA, where preschool become first from the other three subs in educational NKRA. This is shows that early childhood education can effect the achievement of the children learning. Compared to the west early child education, they was started more than 600 years earlier than us when European education Martin Luther (1483-1546) emphasized the importance of create a place to teach children to read. The education in the west evolved much more faster as at they already have the act of Education of All Handicapped Children, established in 1975 and with IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) in 1990 where they already focusing on to teach children with disabilities. In Malaysia, early education for children with disability called CBR (Community-Based Rehabilitation) only introduced in the year of 1992.(George, 2012) FOURTH ISSUE There are many government policies nowadays to promote early child education in Malaysia that are it is compulsory for parents to send their child to school at the early age six, create new preschool curriculum called KSPK (Kurikulum Standard Pra Sekolah) in 2010 to improve the preschool in Malaysia and to have more preschool children that can read and write before entering primary school. Government also shows that they are serious in promoting early child education when they rank the preschool as the number one sub in NKRA for educational minister to be improved in the way of the children learning. As in the west, especially in the United States there are many policies that have been put to help children and their families. For example, The Childrens Defense Fund (CDF), No Child Left Behind Act and so on. The policies are to take care and to educate peoples on the important to provide needs of the children. (George 2012). Other than that, because of the children and families are come from multicultural backgrounds, they will faces many problems that can jeopardize their education and purpose in their life. Thus, the government and non government organization are cooperating to help provides these different needs of educational, health, and social needs for the children and their families.

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FIFTH ISSUE Social issue is the main contributor in affecting the early childhood education as to low grades in school and have major effect on the childrens life. In Malaysia, the social issue can occurred because of the poverty. According to Siti Zaharah (2000), the continuation of poverty in any society will cause negative effects on the growth of families and children. Poverty in Malaysia are declined from about 52 percent in 1970 to 17.1 percent in 1990 and further reduced to 9.6 percent in 1998 resulted from the programs design by the government to reduce poverty. According to George (2012), poverty can effect the students achievements as the children that come from low incomes family are tend to have low grade in study, do not have motivation in study and also their parents are not likely helps the children to do their homework at home. Besides that, family under poverty is having problem to provide good food for their children. Lack of food causing less nutrition provides to the children to help in their physical and mental growth. Based on George (2012), the children growth, development and educational results can be effect by the childrens home and environments of their homes. In Malaysia, there are still people are lives in squatter with their children with small house that only have one bedroom. This will have effect on the children overall aspect and put such a higher rates of stress in children-parents relationship. But according to the article written by Syafiee (not stated) the government of Malaysia has taken serious action by introducing The National Development Plan, 1991 in order to build more affordable housing especially low and low medium housing. Other than that, government also have introduce the E-Kasih programs for families with low incomes to providing them with house and the expenses are fully sponsored by the government. With a comfortable environment in home, it will promote a better learning environment for the children. Wellness and healthy living is also major contributor for children to have better results in school and their life outcomes. As the family can provide a healthy living style its automatically led the children to better learning environment. In Malaysia, there are many programs that have been executed to promote the healthiness of the children such as breast feeding for early born till the age of two. This was to provide enough nutrition for the growth of children physically and mentally from the early age. Other than that, the children in Malaysia are also provided with
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BCG injections for free that are obliged to all children in Malaysia to provide and build strong antibody. Thus, the children cannot be easily infected by illness. CONCLUSION The changes in early childhood education and the contemporary influences on children and families in Malaysia can help us to see the importance of early childhood education in the development of children achievement in all aspects of life. All the issues that have been discussed also helps in the understanding of early childhood education and bring more academic discussion to help improve on the implementation of early childhood education in Malaysia. (2, 524 words)

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REFERENCES George S. Morrison. (2012). Early Childhood Education Today. New Jersey. Pearson Education Heng K. C. (2008). Child Care in Malaysia: Then and Now. International Journal of Child Care and Education policy. Irene. (2008). My Notes- Early Childhood Education Diploma. Retrieved on March 9, 2012 from http://www.irenelaw.net/category/foundation-of-early-childhood-education/ Nasruddin Y. & Johari T. (2009). Mothers At Work: What Happen To Children. International Review of Business research Paper. Noriati A. Rashied et. Al. (2010). Guru Dan Cabaran Semasa. Selangor. Oxford Fajar Sdn. Bhd. Positive Parenting. (not stated). Thriving as Single Parents. Malaysia Siti Zaharah. (2000). The Welfare of Children and Family. Retrieved on March 12, 2012 from http://www.icsw.org/global-conferences/sulaiman.htm Syafiee Shuid. (not stated). Low Medium Cost Housing in Malaysia: Issues and Challenges. Kuala Lumpur

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