Professional Documents
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Key Words: Early Childhood Education, Pre-primary Education, learning, cognitive development
INTRODUCTION
Early childhood development and education
basically deals with physical care and education
of young children from birth to eight years of age.
It is regarded as a recent development in most of
Asian countries (Fagbeminiyi 2010).
The importance and value of education in early
years of life have been acknowledged for more
than 2000 years. The early education system in
the United States grew substantially as emerging
need due to fundamental changes in family life
during the second half of twentieth century.
These changes include raising living cost,
increased number of dual income families, an
increased in single parent family, increased
number of teenage parent and decrease in the
impact of extended family. This allowed the
majority of American children to have access to
some form of early childhood education.
The ECE can be grouped by the age of children. It
is grouped from birth to eight years which include
infants, toddlers, preschooler, kindergartners
and children in the primary grades (Essa 2007).
Number of studies revealed that learning starts
from the mother womb (Rohani 2010) and
parents can help their babys natural cognitive
development by interacting with baby by talking,
singing and reading story books.
These early years are most important to learn and
absorb more information than later on. The brain
develops and grows rapidly during these years.
Better environment and trained teachers give
46
47
No. of Years
Percentage
One Year
28.6
Two Years
38.1
Three Years
33.3
Majority has understood the importance of ECE
or preprimary education considering it as an
opportunity of socialization, to get familiar with
school environment, opportunity of learning and
play at safe environment.
Respondents gave different reasons to not to opt
the government schools but most common
reason was low standard of education. (Table 1.2)
Table.2: Reasons for do not opt Govt. Schools
Reasons
Percentage
Low standard of Education
61.9
Long distance
9.5
Age limit
4.8
Low infrastructure
4.8
Low level of care
4.8
Over-crowded classes
4.8
Urdu medium of education
4.8
Unfriendly environment
4.8
Positive results found regarding school
environment and teaching methodology. 85%
parents reported that their children feel happy to
go to school. 90.5 % parents said that children get
homework but only 76.2% parents reported that
their children willingly do their homework.
Considering the importance of play in education
at this level 71.4 % parents told that extracurricular activities are regularly included in their
school schedule.
REFERENCES
Curtis, Audrey, and Maureen O'Hagan
2003 Care and Education in Early
Childhood: A Student's Guide to Theory
and Practice. Routledge.
Edward, Susan
2009 Early Childhood Education and
Care; A Socio-cultural Approach. New
South Wales, Pademelon Press.
Essa, Eva L.
2007
EFA
2004 Early
Childhood
Regional
Capacity-Building
Initiative
http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/k
now_sharing/flagship_initiatives/early_ch
ildhood.shtml
Fagbeminiyi, Fasina F.
2011 The Role of Parents in Early
Childhood Education: A Case Study of
Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria. Global
Journal of Human Social Science11(2).
Rohani, Cyrus
2010
Early
Childhood
Education.
Journal of College Teaching & Learning
7(1): 13-16.
The Constitution of Pakistan.
1973 The Constitution of the Islamic
Republic
of
Pakistan
http://www.na.gov.pk/uploads/documen
ts/1333523681_951.pdf
Publication Date: Feb-29 -2016
2016 The Explorer Islamabad Journal of Social Sciences-Pakistan
48