Schweinhart and Weikart concluded that the goals of early education should not be limited to academic preparation for school, but should also include helping children learn to make decisions, solve problems and get along with others.
Yanez[8] comments that a major finding of the Bernard van Leer Foundation is that learning during the first three years should not be the exclusive domain of the education sector.
With reference to Hong Kong, Singapore and Shenzhen pre-schools, Li et al.[9] caution that: ‘using Euro-American norms to unify the learning of young children under varying contexts is absolutely an impossible mission.
[10] Proponents of the former generally favour a more academic and prescriptive pre-school curriculum with formal teaching of the alphabet and other basic skills, while those supporting a ‘constructivist’ approach encourage children’s active engagement with materials and people; they support a more open curriculum, with emphasis on offering children diverse opportunities and materials from which they can construct their own learning.
[3] At the national level, the onus is on curriculum writers and the team to explore diversity, to identify common ground and to reach a consensus on what is in the best interests of all children.
At the community level, educators need the freedom to follow individual pathways while striving to meet goals based on societal norms and values.
[10] Proponents of an academic curriculum are likely to favour a focus on basic skills, especially literacy and numeracy, and structured pre-determined activities for achieving related goals.
[12] The type of document that emerges from this perspective is likely to be more open, offering a framework which teachers and parents can use to develop curricula specific to their contexts.
[13] Despite the mutual interactions and similarities due to globalization, early childhood curricular policies and practices are still context-specific to a large extent.
[16] Teachers are at the core of education and has a key role in nurturing future generations who are not only critical thinkers, but also informed and empowered actors prepared to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies.
[18] Educators and teachers are essential in young people’s lives, and are central to developing students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills and to teach them how to engage in society both constructively and responsibly.
Apart from strengthening the role of parents, these programmes respond to gaps that have persisted in the developing world despite global attention to ECCE; i.e. a focus on under threes and servicing the most marginalised children and families.