Many are the times that the high number of teachers and the most qualified are assigned to students of higher grades and only a few and the less qualified are assigned to the children in preschools. On the contrary, the truth is that young children are the ones who need the most qualified children and a lot of attention since eighty percent of the human brain develops between the age of zero and three. The world now seems to understand better than ever before the importance of early childhood development. The quality of education and care one receives at an early age has a great impact on their success in the rest of their school lives as well as their performance in the future. In the past, people mostly concentrated on a child’s health and nutrition from the time of conception to the age before the child joins the school. However, nowadays, research on child development has shown the crucial need for more attention to the development of cognitive and stimulation, stable and continuous care as well as keeping children from stress and conflict at the time they are in their early age (Shaeffer, 2015). A gradual and developmentally-appropriate approach should be applied to master the literacy and numeracy of children at an early age so that they are ready for the rest of the education system as well as the rest of their lives by the time they leave their early age.
Many government and ministries of education continue to pay little attention to early childhood education and care. Some education ministries do not even budget for early childhood education and care but instead leave the responsibility to the private sector, ministry of social welfare or that of women affairs and children on preschool age. This perception should change and has started to change in many parts of the world that have become enlightened. However, less financial resources and attention is given to the preschool programs compared to what is given to the programs that lie under what is considered the beginning of formal education. Teachers and caregivers in preschool programs are often less experienced with little if any, professional qualifications. The child to teacher/caregiver ratio is also high with only one teacher or a caregiver handling everything in a class of many active little children. The ratio of the children to their teachers or caregivers is a major indicator of the quality of early childhood education and care and so is the qualifications of the teachers or rather the caregivers. Many are the times that children in preschool are left in the care of elder teachers or caregivers with the assumption that they are more “matronly” and patient with the young children (Shaeffer, 2015). These teachers and caregivers rarely have any specialized training and appropriate qualifications in literacy and numeracy neither in the use of the children’s mother tongue which should be a child’s first language of literacy.
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There are standard numbers of children that daycares can take depending on the number of caregivers they have. In California for example, a small family child care can only accommodate six children and among them not more than three infants (California Family Child Care Staffing Ratio and Capacity). A mother with one infant can explain that it can be quite challenging for one person to handle six children by themselves. The ration of children to caregivers should, therefore, be increased to ensure that young children get enough attention hence high-quality care and education to ensure that their potential grows to the maximum.
Most of the people running the daycares have no specialized education on how to handle little children and make the best out of them. Most of them depend on the maternal instincts and general randomly acquired knowledge about how to raise children. However, this should not be the case. High-quality care and education are most important at an early age and therefore this is the time the children should interact with highly skilled people. Most people are just okay with letting their child get care and early education from someone who seems caring and loving to the child even if they barely graduated from high school. This is where many parents go wrong and deny their children the opportunity of developing full potential.
In March 2017, the District of Colombia announced that child-care workers needed to get a college degree (Chandler, 2017). The announcement was received with a lot of negativity with even high-profile persons terming it as ill-advised and insanely stupid. The founding executive director of the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at the University of Massachusetts, Boston asserted that there was nothing stupid about the decision and that the requirement meant a lot of sense from an educational standpoint (Douglass, 2018). It takes skill, sufficient knowledge and experience to come up with and implement a structure to teach children who can barely talk or understand words.
Research on brain development has shown clearly that early education and childcare has a significant effect on the future success of an individual. It is therefore crucial for the society to invest a lot in young children. High child-caretaker ratio, as well as highly trained caregivers, mean increased charges for daycare services. Many people are unwilling to pay high fees for preschool programs thinking that it is unnecessary. They, however, should be informed that the most important investment is the one made at the early age of a child since it could mean an easier flow for the rest of the child’s life. When the society invests significantly in children, there is hope for reduced crime, better leaders and professionals in the future.
References
California Family Child Care Staffing Ratio and Capacity. Retrieved from http://www.sccca.info/pdfs/FCC%20staff%20ratio.pdf?sid=c1b565890700c5245edf969550505f47
Chandler, M. (2017). D.C. among first in nation to require child-care workers to get college degrees. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/district-among-the-first-in-nation-to-require-child-care-workers-to-get-college-degrees/2017/03/30/d7d59e18-0fe9-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.21d5c25271f4
Douglass, A. (2018). Why your child’s preschool teacher should have a college degree. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/why-your-childs-preschool-teacher-should-have-a-college-degree-88514
Shaeffer, S. (2015). Critical Issues in Early Childhood Development and Early Learning. Retrieved from http://headfoundation.org/2015/12/15/critical-issues-in-early-childhood-development-and-early-learning/
