Finland Malays

Article 1
Grierson,H.(2000) Mariani Md Nor(2017).

According to its Programme, in terms of family policy, the Government Funding: Percentage
will, among other Public current expenditure per pupil as percentage of the Gross National Product per capita
things,
• promote such conditions and co-operation between various quarters Main source(s) of financing:
that support responsible parenthood, a secure growth environment and The Government provides all financing for ECCE programs under the
progress towards Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Rural and Regional Development,
the National Unity Department and the Department of Social Welfare.
balanced adult maturity;
• develop morning and afternoon care for small schoolchildren;
• safeguard varied alternatives in the organisation of child care;
• endeavour to increase the flexibility of day care so that it will better
correspond to the 2.1. National definition of other ECCE programs:

needs of early childhood education and care and the changed labour According to the Report of Malaysia for the Education For All Conference
market; (2000), ECCE programs are divided into home-based centres (what some
would call family daycare homes) serving fewer than 10 children and
• investigate the possibilities to create a system that would guarantee targeted largely on children under age 4, and pre-schools for 4-5-year-olds,
fathers the right to a disproportionately available in urban areas.

month of parental leave; and

• advance equality in working life and the implementation of good
practices in equality issues
in working communities.

As explained in more detail below, the Government will introduce
pre-school education
free of charge for six-year-olds in 2000–2001. The reform of pre-school
education will be
incorporated into the concept of lifelong learning. According to the
Government Programme,
Finland will also investigate the feasibility of lowering the age of
starting compulsory
education in the 9-year basic education from the year 2003.
Normative age group(s) covered by other ECCE programs:
Children under age 4 (0–3+ years old) and children under age 6 (3+ to 4+ years old
and 4+ to 5+ years old).
3.1. Legislation concerning ECCE:
The 1984 Child Care Act (308 Act) refers to all ECCE programmes for
children under age 4. The Education Act (1996) has included pre-school
education as part of the national school system. All kindergartens (3+ to 5+
years old) have to follow curriculum guidelines provided by the Ministry of
Education.
3.2. Official body/bodies in charge of supervision or coordination:

The objective of Finnish family policy is to create a safe growth Pre-school education is provided by government agencies such as the Ministry of
environment for children Education, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of National Unity and
Community Development as well as the private sector and non-governmental
and to guarantee parents the material and psychological resources to organizations. All pre-school centres are registered with the Ministry of Education.
bear and raise children. The government operated 81.6% of the pre-school programs in 1995. Of these,
61.8% were operated by the Community Development Division of the Ministry of
Society uses various forms of financial support and child-care Rural Development, 9.5% by the Ministry of National Unity and Social Development,
arrangements to level out the and 10.3% by the Ministry of Education. The other 18.4% were operated by the
private sector. Public pre-school programs are free to parents and funded by the
expenses that children bring. Government. Private programs charge fees.
Finland started to construct its family policy support system in 1948,
when the child benefit
system was introduced. In those days, child benefit had a considerable
3.5. Type of staff training (requirements):
bearing on the subsistence
3.6. Recent national policies and reforms:
of families with children, and its significance was also evident in society
as a In 2001, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and other relevant ministries
had increased access to preschool education. The private sector had also
whole. In 1950, when child benefit was the only significant family complemented the government’s effort. The MOE further improved
policy benefit, aid for education at this level by institutionalizing it and making the National
family expenses accounted for almost 4% of the gross domestic product. Preschool Curriculum compulsory in all pre-schools beginning 2003.
After the introduction of child benefit, the development of family policy 3.7. Efforts targeted at vulnerable or disadvantaged children:
remained in the Expanding provision of preschool classes throughout all areas (more sub-urban and
rural areas). Disable/special children expansion to 100 classes under MOE.
background for a few decades, when the focus was on the creation of the
health insurance
and pension security systems. The situation changed again in the
mid-1970’s, when family
policy issues began to attract increasing attention. As the real value of 3.9.1. Objectives and aims:
child benefit had declined,
the amount was gradually increased so that, by the beginning of the T
1990’s, its real
value had approximately tripled compared with the early 1970’s.
(Based on: Education Aspiration and Preschool Education Goal).
However, a factor even more significant than the increased child benefit
was investment in
The above-stated objectives are materialized through respective learning
the development of child-care systems for small children, which started areas. They are:
in the first half of
•
5
the 1970’s. In the majority of Finnish families with children under
school age, both parents
are gainfully employed. As distinct from many other countries, mothers
of small children
also generally work full-time. In this situation, a reliable, safe and
reasonably priced daycare
system is of vital importance.
The Act on Children’s Day Care came into force more than a quarter of a
century ago, in
1973. According to the Act, the obligation to organise day care for
children under school
age rests with the local authorities. The local authorities may provide
day care either in daycare
centres or in the form of family day care. Since 1990, parents have
enjoyed an unconditional
right to day care for children under three years of age either in
municipal day care``
or by receiving child home care allowance in order to care for their
children at home. As
from 1996, the parents of all children under school age have enjoyed
the right to a daycare
place provided by their local authority. Since August 1997, it has been
possible for
familie
Provision of educational services in Finland Are any of these programmes targeted specifically toward the vulnerable, poor,
disadvantaged or excluded? If so, which ones? (Please provide/attach any additional
IN FINLAND, each local authority is obligated to provide basic and relevant information if available).
education for children and
Yes. For example Mass Media (RTM) always give current information to parents on
young people of compulsory school age (7–16) residing in the Early Childhood Special Education. Some NGOs and Community Groups also
municipality. A local authority collaborated with the relevant agencies to develop ECCE programs.

may organise education independently or jointly with other local 4.2. Is there a national-level system for monitoring children’s development or school
readiness prior to entering primary school?
authorities, or by purchasing
Yes. Evaluation and assessment are important and compulsory in preschool as
it from an association or foundation, which has been granted a licence to stated in the Education Act (1996) [550 Act]. The Student’s Personal Record must be
organise given to Year 1 teacher to monitor the student’s ability.
such education by the Government. Moreover, municipalities with
hospitals are also obligated
to provide instruction for pupils who are currently patients at such
hospitals in so far
as it is possible bearing in mind the pupil’s health and other
circumstances. A municipality
with both Finnish- and Swedish-speaking inhabitants is obligated to
provide basic education
separately for both language groups. The language of instruction may
also be the Sámi
or Romany language or sign language.
Instruction and the necessary schoolbooks and other learning materials,
as well as work
equipment and materials are provided to pupils free of charge. Those
attending instruction
must be provided with a properly organised and supervised balanced
meal free of charge
every school day.
If the journey to school of a pupil in basic education exceeds five
kilometres or if it is difficult,
taxing or dangerous for the pupil in other ways, then the pupil has the
right to free
transportation or suitable assistance.
There is a development and evaluation centre, the National Board of
Education, operating
under the auspices of the Ministry of Education.
Overview of Finnish education policy
The objective of general upper secondary education is to promote the
development of students
into good, balanced and civilised individuals and members of society
and to provide
students with the knowledge and skills necessary in further studies,
working life, their personal
interests and the versatile development of their personality. Moreover,
the education
must support the students’ opportunities for lifelong learning and
self-development during
their lives.
1.5. The Finnish ECEC system
The concept of EduCare has been used internationally to describe more
extensively the
ECEC model of a Nordic welfare state, where care, education and
instruction have been
combined to form an integrated whole and where play is a central tool of
pedagogical activities.
Children’s day care and other systems supporting care for small children
are thus
part of early childhood education and care.
Alongside the day-care system, the opportunity for parents to stay at
home to care for their
new-born and small children has been promoted in Finland since the
1970’s. For this purpose,
maternity, paternity and parental leaves and allowances are available. In
addition,
since the mid-1980’s, parents have also been able to arrange their
children’s care by means
of child home care allowance, which is an exceptional system even in
international terms.
The child home care allowance has enabled parents either to care for
their children themselves
or to choose a place in private day care. As from August 1997, however,
the child
home care allowance is being granted mainly to parents and there are
separate provisions on
private child-care allowance.
The reform of pre-school education for six-year-olds is being
implemented in Finland as a
’mixed model’, in which the local authorities may decide whether to
provide pre-school
education within day care or school system. Despite of where pre-school
education is provided
it has to be organised according to the Act of education and the core
curricula for preschool
education. Children attending pre-school education still have a
subjective right to
day care as a complement to the pre-school education. Among other
things, the EduCare
tradition is reflected in Finland in the strong opinion that demand for day
care must be
taken into account in decisions on pre-school education. In 1998, 53%
of six-year-olds were
in full-time day-care.
In addition to the above-mentioned mixed model, there is also good
reason to call the preschool
reform a co-operative model. Implementation of the reform of
pre-school education
for six-year-olds requires close co-operation between the social and
educational sectors at
7
all levels, whether nationally, regionally or locally. Pre-school reform is
also developing the
EduCare system in administrative terms.
The Finnish ECEC system and the concepts it covers are illustrated in
Figure 2. The concepts
shown in the figure will be explained in more detail in Chapters 3 and 4.
Pre-school reform will be described separately in Chapter
Quality Standard-finland 2

Inspections for service quality are usually published at the local level
and primarily focus on structural aspects: compliance with regulations
regarding health, hygiene and safety regulations, staff-child ratios, and
minimum staff qualifications.

A broad range of tools are used for inspections, including: rating scales,
checklists, observations, results of self-evaluations (if any are conducted), and
staff and parental surveys.

Staff performance is monitored through inspections and

self-evaluations. Inspections focus on staff qualifications, but may also look at
teamwork and communication between staff, work conditions, process quality,
planning, and knowledge of subjects. Self-evaluation tools differ between
municipalities or settings in Finland.

Frequency of monitoring service and staff quality is not regulated and

differs by municipalities.

Children’s development and outcomes are mainly monitored to

improve the quality of the setting, identify staff learning needs and
enhance staff performance. Monitoring also aims to identify children’s
learning needs and stimulate their development.

Finland takes children’s views into account when monitoring quality

and commonly makes use of narrative assessments to monitor child
development, such as storytelling instruments and portfolios, and
observational tools, such as rating scales and checklists. There is no national
testing of children in Finland.

There are several monitoring challenges in Finland. These include the

lack of a shared perspective on what quality in ECEC encompasses. Setting out
clear, comprehensive, explicit quality goals in a framework can contribute to a
mutual understanding of quality. In addition, Finland has no national
monitoring system as monitoring is implemented at local level. Developing a
national quality framework and standardising monitoring tools can help create
more coherence in monitoring practices. Lastly, there is limited training on
monitoring available which calls for a greater training offer on the
implementation of monitoring practices.

FINLAND 4
CLIENTS
TEACHING
ROLE OF EDUCATORS
FINLAND 4: malaysia : Programme Standard Early Childhood Education

Finland 2 :MQA(2014). Monitoring Quality of Early Chidlhood and Care Country Note. Starting Strong IV. pp1-pp79

Finland Malays

Article 1
Grierson,H.(2000) Mariani Md Nor(2017).

Government policy Starting age of compulsory education (if applicable):

THE FINNISH Government Programme adopted in the spring of 1999 Primary education entrance age: 6 years. According to Section 29A(1) of
contains several objectives the Education Amendment Act 2002 (Act A1152), effective January 1
2003, the government has made primary education compulsory for all
and policy definitions, which are important from the perspective of early children aged 6+.
childhood
education and care and pre-school education. The general objective is
for Finland to be an
equitable and motivating, socially sound and undivided state. The future
of Finland and of
Finns is strongly linked to knowledge and expertise as well as the ability
to utilise this
know-how and expertise and to create new innovations. Raising the
level of expertise of the
whole population will support Finland’s development as a civilised
nation.
According to its Programme, in terms of family policy, the Government Funding: Percentage
will, among other Public current expenditure per pupil as percentage of the Gross National Product per capita
things,
• promote such conditions and co-operation between various quarters
that support responsible parenthood, a secure growth environment and
progress towards
balanced adult maturity;
• develop morning and afternoon care for small schoolchildren;
• safeguard varied alternatives in the organisation of child care;
• endeavour to increase the flexibility of day care so that it will better
correspond to the
needs of early childhood education and care and the changed labour
market;
• investigate the possibilities to create a system that would guarantee
fathers the right to a
month of parental leave; and
• advance equality in working life and the implementation of good
practices in equality issues
in working communities.
As explained in more detail below, the Government will introduce
pre-school education
free of charge for six-year-olds in 2000–2001. The reform of pre-school
education will be
incorporated into the concept of lifelong learning. According to the
Government Programme,
Finland will also investigate the feasibility of lowering the age of
starting compulsory
education in the 9-year basic education from the year 2003.
The objective of Finnish family policy is to create a safe growth
environment for children
and to guarantee parents the material and psychological resources to
bear and raise children.
Society uses various forms of financial support and child-care
arrangements to level out the
expenses that children bring.
Finland started to construct its family policy support system in 1948,
when the child benefit
system was introduced. In those days, child benefit had a considerable
bearing on the subsistence
of families with children, and its significance was also evident in society
as a
whole. In 1950, when child benefit was the only significant family
policy benefit, aid for
family expenses accounted for almost 4% of the gross domestic product.
After the introduction of child benefit, the development of family policy
remained in the
background for a few decades, when the focus was on the creation of the
health insurance
and pension security systems. The situation changed again in the
mid-1970’s, when family
policy issues began to attract increasing attention. As the real value of
child benefit had declined,
the amount was gradually increased so that, by the beginning of the
1990’s, its real
value had approximately tripled compared with the early 1970’s.
However, a factor even more significant than the increased child benefit
was investment in
the development of child-care systems for small children, which started
in the first half of
5
the 1970’s. In the majority of Finnish families with children under
school age, both parents
are gainfully employed. As distinct from many other countries, mothers
of small children
also generally work full-time. In this situation, a reliable, safe and
reasonably priced daycare
system is of vital importance.
The Act on Children’s Day Care came into force more than a quarter of a
century ago, in
1973. According to the Act, the obligation to organise day care for
children under school
age rests with the local authorities. The local authorities may provide
day care either in daycare
centres or in the form of family day care. Since 1990, parents have
enjoyed an unconditional
right to day care for children under three years of age either in
municipal day care``
or by receiving child home care allowance in order to care for their
children at home. As
from 1996, the parents of all children under school age have enjoyed
the right to a daycare
place provided by their local authority. Since August 1997, it has been
possible for
familie
Provision of educational services in Finland
IN FINLAND, each local authority is obligated to provide basic
education for children and
young people of compulsory school age (7–16) residing in the
municipality. A local authority
may organise education independently or jointly with other local
authorities, or by purchasing
it from an association or foundation, which has been granted a licence to
organise
such education by the Government. Moreover, municipalities with
hospitals are also obligated
to provide instruction for pupils who are currently patients at such
hospitals in so far
as it is possible bearing in mind the pupil’s health and other
circumstances. A municipality
with both Finnish- and Swedish-speaking inhabitants is obligated to
provide basic education
separately for both language groups. The language of instruction may
also be the Sámi
or Romany language or sign language.
Instruction and the necessary schoolbooks and other learning materials,
as well as work
equipment and materials are provided to pupils free of charge. Those
attending instruction
must be provided with a properly organised and supervised balanced
meal free of charge
every school day.
If the journey to school of a pupil in basic education exceeds five
kilometres or if it is difficult,
taxing or dangerous for the pupil in other ways, then the pupil has the
right to free
transportation or suitable assistance.
There is a development and evaluation centre, the National Board of
Education, operating
under the auspices of the Ministry of Education.
Overview of Finnish education policy
The objective of basic education is to support pupils’ growth towards
humanity and ethically
responsible membership of society, and to provide them with the
knowledge and skills
necessary in life. The objective of pre-school education, as part of early
childhood educa6
tion and care, is to improve children’s learning conditions. The
education must also promote
civilisation and equality in society and pupils’ opportunities to
participate in education
and to develop themselves during their lives. A further objective is to
safeguard a sufficient
level of equal opportunities for education throughout the country.
The objective of general upper secondary education is to promote the
development of students
into good, balanced and civilised individuals and members of society
and to provide
students with the knowledge and skills necessary in further studies,
working life, their personal
interests and the versatile development of their personality. Moreover,
the education
must support the students’ opportunities for lifelong learning and
self-development during
their lives.
1.5. The Finnish ECEC system
THE FINNISH system of early childhood education and care (ECEC)
policy may be described
with the concept of EduCare. It fulfils both the day-care needs of small
children and
the educational and instructional perspective.
The concept of EduCare has been used internationally to describe more
extensively the
ECEC model of a Nordic welfare state, where care, education and
instruction have been
combined to form an integrated whole and where play is a central tool of
pedagogical activities.
Children’s day care and other systems supporting care for small children
are thus
part of early childhood education and care.
Alongside the day-care system, the opportunity for parents to stay at
home to care for their
new-born and small children has been promoted in Finland since the
1970’s. For this purpose,
maternity, paternity and parental leaves and allowances are available. In
addition,
since the mid-1980’s, parents have also been able to arrange their
children’s care by means
of child home care allowance, which is an exceptional system even in
international terms.
The child home care allowance has enabled parents either to care for
their children themselves
or to choose a place in private day care. As from August 1997, however,
the child
home care allowance is being granted mainly to parents and there are
separate provisions on
private child-care allowance.
The reform of pre-school education for six-year-olds is being
implemented in Finland as a
’mixed model’, in which the local authorities may decide whether to
provide pre-school
education within day care or school system. Despite of where pre-school
education is provided
it has to be organised according to the Act of education and the core
curricula for preschool
education. Children attending pre-school education still have a
subjective right to
day care as a complement to the pre-school education. Among other
things, the EduCare
tradition is reflected in Finland in the strong opinion that demand for day
care must be
taken into account in decisions on pre-school education. In 1998, 53%
of six-year-olds were
in full-time day-care.
In addition to the above-mentioned mixed model, there is also good
reason to call the preschool
reform a co-operative model. Implementation of the reform of
pre-school education
for six-year-olds requires close co-operation between the social and
educational sectors at
7
all levels, whether nationally, regionally or locally. Pre-school reform is
also developing the
EduCare system in administrative terms.
The Finnish ECEC system and the concepts it covers are illustrated in
Figure 2. The concepts
shown in the figure will be explained in more detail in Chapters 3 and 4.
Pre-school reform will be described separately in Chapter
Quality Standard-finland 2

Finland has an integrated ECEC system, with one authority responsible

for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). At the same time,
responsibilities for monitoring have been decentralised to the
municipalities. Standard setting, financing and curriculum design for ECEC
are also shared between different levels of government.

Service and staff quality are monitored for a variety of reasons:

accountability purposes (without sanctions or rewards), to inform policy
making, to improve the level of service and staff quality and stimulate
children’s development, and to identify learning needs for both staff in
children.

Inspections for service quality are usually published at the local level
and primarily focus on structural aspects: compliance with regulations
regarding health, hygiene and safety regulations, staff-child ratios, and
minimum staff qualifications.
 A broad range of tools are used for inspections, including: rating scales,
checklists, observations, results of self-evaluations (if any are conducted), and
staff and parental surveys.

Staff performance is monitored through inspections and

self-evaluations. Inspections focus on staff qualifications, but may also look at
teamwork and communication between staff, work conditions, process quality,
planning, and knowledge of subjects. Self-evaluation tools differ between
municipalities or settings in Finland.

Frequency of monitoring service and staff quality is not regulated and

differs by municipalities.

Children’s development and outcomes are mainly monitored to

improve the quality of the setting, identify staff learning needs and
enhance staff performance. Monitoring also aims to identify children’s
learning needs and stimulate their development.

Finland takes children’s views into account when monitoring quality

and commonly makes use of narrative assessments to monitor child
development, such as storytelling instruments and portfolios, and
observational tools, such as rating scales and checklists. There is no national
testing of children in Finland.

There are several monitoring challenges in Finland. These include the

lack of a shared perspective on what quality in ECEC encompasses. Setting out
clear, comprehensive, explicit quality goals in a framework can contribute to a
mutual understanding of quality. In addition, Finland has no national
monitoring system as monitoring is implemented at local level. Developing a
national quality framework and standardising monitoring tools can help create
more coherence in monitoring practices. Lastly, there is limited training on
monitoring available which calls for a greater training offer on the
implementation of monitoring practices.

FINLAND 4
CLIENTS
TEACHING
ROLE OF EDUCATORS
MOE.(2008). Early Childhood Care and Education Policy Implementation Review 2007. Retrieved on 24 July 2018 from
http://www.academia.edu/9863151/Malaysian_Early_Childhood_Care_and_Education_Policy_Review

Grierson,H.(2000). Early Childhood Education and Care Policy in Finland. Background report prepared for the OECD Thematic Review of Early
Childhood Education and Care Policy.Retrieved on 25 July 2018 from http://www.oecd.org/copyr.htm

Finland Malaysia
 Country Profile in ECCE
Prescool Education for the 4-6 years old
2.1 The History of Preschool Education in Malaysia 8 2.2 Preschools in
the Ministry of Education 9 2.3 Preschools set up by Ministry of Rural
and Regional Development 9 2.4 Preschools set up by Department of
National Unity and Integration 10 2.5 Preschool Education for the
Special Children 11 2.6 Preschools run by Private Sectors and NGOs 11
Childcare centers for the 0-4 years old
2.7 The history of childcare centers for children aged 0-4 12 2.8
Workplace Childcare Centers 12 2.9 Community Childcare centers 13
2.10
Permata
Childcare Centres
Quality Quality of ECCE Programme in malaysia

Compulsory education ordinarily begins in the year, during which the

child reaches the age
POLICY 2: USING A STANDARDISED CURRICULUM
of seven.
RELATED REGULATION/LAW:
Public early childhood education and care may be considered to include o
care, education and
instruction carried out in addition to the upbringing provided at home or
EDUCATION ACT 1996: All preschools must use the National
in the immediate
Preschool Curriculum
neighbourhood. The task of early childhood education and care is to
promote children’s
welfare in all respects. The most important body carrying out early
childhood education and
care is the day-care centre. Specific pre-school education for All public preschools use the National Preschool Curriculum (NPC).
six-year-olds is provided as Eachyear the school inspectorate will organise collaborative preschool
inspection wherethe various divisions within MOE who has specific
part of early childhood education and care both in day care (within the
Preschool Unit will take part. Thisreport would be sent up to the
social sector) and in
Minister of Education for further action. In the 2005collaborative
school within the educational sector. preschool inspection conducted from June to August of 2005, a total
of141 MOE preschools (46 urban, 91 rural) were inspected for a whole
day lesson. Thearea of inspection includes

However, these objectives do not cover

pre-school education. In its report completed in the spring of 1999, the
ECEC Working
At present, specific pre-school education for six-year-olds is only
regulated by the legislation
governing the educational sector, i.e. the school legislation. Pursuant to
the Comprehensive
School Act, the Ministry of Education has provided for pre-school
education given
at comprehensive school. In the educational sector, pre-school
education means the systematic
education and instruction provided as part of early childhood education
and care in
the year preceding the commencement of compulsory education.

The main purpose of the national recommendation entitled ’Quality

Management in Social
Welfare and Health Care for the 21st Century’ is to:
• promote a client-focused approach;
• show how quality management supports good services;
• foster the initiation and development of quality management in all
areas
of social welfare and health care;
• fine-tune the agenda published in 1995;
• encourage co-operation in line with approved objectives and principles
of quality management.
The recommendation applies to both public and private social and health
care services. In
addition to service providers, major participants in quality management
include instructors,
researchers and customer and trade organisations operating in the field.

Inspection and evaluation of education

Historically, there has been a system to inspect education in Finland.
Since the 1960’s, inspectors
have operated in conjunction with the Provincial State Offices. As part
of the decentralisation
of the school sector and administration and the consolidation of
municipal
self-government, regular inspections of schools were discontinued in the
late 1980’s. There
are still school inspectors in the Provincial State Offices, but their tasks
are related to certain
administrative duties, on the one hand, and to the general development
of education, on
the other. The inspectors (Provincial State Offices) can only interfere in
the affairs of an individual
local authority or school if they receive complaints from citizens
concerning isolated
cases. This has been authorised as a result of the new Local Government
Act enacted
in 1995.
In the new legislation of 1999, evaluation of education was stipulated as
being a statutory
duty at all levels. Self-evaluation is a statutory duty of each educational
institution, i.e. the
education provider. External evaluation of schools and education is a
statutory duty of the
State, and of the National Board of Education in particular.
The national evaluation conducted by the National Board of Education
is primarily divided
into two parts. On the one hand, based on a sample of about 5% of
educational institutions,
the achievements of comprehensive school 9th-formers in the main
subjects are assessed at
regular intervals over a few years. On the other hand, the

Access Access

IN FINLAND, children start school at the age of seven. Comprehensive

school lasts 9
REFUGEE聽CHILDREN
years. Prior to starting comprehensive school, children have been able to
Malaysia has not acceded to the Convention of Refugees and has
participate in oneyear
also reservedArticle 28 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
pre-school education. Hence Malaysia is not obligedto provide for the education of
children of refugees. In view of this, education ofrefugee children is
For the most part, pre-school education has been carried out within the
left to United Nation High Commission on Refugee
administrative
(UNHCR).Currently NGOs are running informal education classes
branch of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, and the local for some refugee children.Some refugee communities have taken
authorities have received the initiatives to establish community-basedschooling for their
children
funding for that purpose according to the regulations of this Ministry.
Families have paid
fees in proportion to their income and number of children. Within the INDIGENOUS CHILDREN
educational sector, Indigenous children in Malaysia is categorised into two major
groups, one groupin the peninsular of Malaysia (West Malaysia)
the Ministry of Education has granted a total of about 6 000 pre-school
and the other in East Malaysia (thestates of Sabah and Sarawak).
licences to 200 local
East Malaysia is separated from West Malaysia by theSouth
authorities. In this case, funding has been allocated in accordance with China Sea. In fact, indigenous people form the major population of
legislation governing EastMalaysia, they are made up of the ethnic groups of Iban,
Dayak, Kadazan, Penan,Bidayuh etc. Though many of these
the educational sector and such pre-school education has been free of indigenous people are already living in townsand cities, there are
charge for families.
still many who are leading a more nomadic life in the interior
ofSabah and Sarawak

IN ADDITION to municipal social and educational sectors, pre-school POLICY AREA 1: TO PROVIDE ECCE TO ALL CHILDREN
or equivalent circle RELATED REGULATION/LAW:
activities are also provided in many parts (in 57% of municipalities) by o
other bodies, mostly
by parishes and private day-care providers.
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (CRC)
39
Pre-school education provided in private day care in January 1999 was
available in 68 municipalities.
About 2 000 six-year-old children participate in pre-school education
within
private day care, accounting for 3% of the age group. o
According to the Act and Decree effective as from August 2000,
six-year-olds’ pre-school
CHILDREN ACT 2001 (Act 611) - RIGHT TO EDUCATION/HE
education may be provided by a parish or another private body, but the ALTHCARE*
activities shall fulfil
o
the criteria put forward in legislation. Pre-school activities will always
be approved by the
NURSERY ACT 1984 (ACT 308)
local authority concerned. The role of private providers is expected to be
relatively small in
quantitative terms.

as below:

Legally all childcare centers need to be registered with the Ministry

CHANGES IN working life may also be revealed by the proportion of
very small children
in day care. Almost 40% of local authorities estimate that an increasing
number of under
one-year-olds are being brought to day care. In the autumn of 1998,
of Woman, Family and Community Development. The government
did not set any specific targets with regards to the number or
percentage of TASKA to be built in any specific time frame.
TASKA are mainly built and run by private or non-profit
organizations. Currently the government merely sets up the
registration and monitoring mechanism pertaining to the
development of TASKA. However, from 2007, the government is
under one-year-olds accounted beginning to set up some TASKA through the PERMATA projects.
for slightly less than one per cent of children in day care.

Early childhood education in Malaysia for the age group of 4-6 is

offered
by both the public sector as well as the private sector. Public sector
s involved are theMinistry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Rural
and Regional Development(MORRD), and the Department of
National Integrity and Unity (DNID). Other thanthese,
Earlychildhood education for this age group (4-6 years old) is
generally known as the preschool education

Private sector is one of the key players of ECCE in Malaysia. These

privatesectors ranges from individual, company and association.
Amongst these, individualis the main provider. Individually owned
preschools do not usually have manyclasses, they are rather small
in terms of physical areas or number of children.Private preschools
(4-6 years old) or TASKA (0-4 years old) are conductedeither in
residential area, offices, places of worship or purpose-built
premises. Datadisplayed in previous section indicated there are
many unregistered preschools.

Data indicated that majority of Malaysian children have no

problem ofaccessibility to ECCE. There are many ECCE providers
around. The issue at hand isthe non-registration of these ECCE
centres

Childcare Centers Act 1984 and Childcare

Centers Act (Amendment) 2007(Act 308)
Act 308 is intended to ensure quality childcare for children below
the age offour years at childcare centers. Childcare centers
according to this Act are premiseswhere 4 or more children below
the age of 4 years old from more than one householdis accepted for
care with a fee
Early childhood education for the special children is offered by two
ministriesthat is Ministry of Education and Ministry of Woman,
Family and CommunityDevelopment. Policies related to the
provision of education for the special children isenacted in the
Education Act 1996 (Special Education Regulation
-1997).Education for special need children who are having mono
disability, such aschildren with hearing impairment, visual
impairment and learning disability, are underthe care of Ministry
of Education whereas those with multiple disabilities are takencare
by Ministry of Woman, Family and Community Development.
Children who
are physically handicapped but their cognitive is at par as normal
children are inmainstream program, together with normal
children. Besides these two ministries,early childhood education for
special children is also under the non-governmentorganizations and
association such as Down Syndrome Association, National
AutistiTraining of Preschool teachers
Trained by MOE and universities
All teachers teaching in the preschools run by Ministry of
 Education aretrained and certified with at least a diploma in
teaching. Many of them have a degreeand master degree in early
childhood education.Teachers teaching in
KEMAS preschool receives a 6 months training whereas PERPAD
UAN receives a 3 weekstraining by their respective
Ministries. However, since last year, there have been aconcerted
effort by KEMAS and PERPADUAN to work with the Teacher
TrainingDivision of Ministry of Education to provide courses to
their teachers to attain at leasta diploma level.
cSociety of Malaysia, Spastic Centre and many more

Staffing Staffing

The structure and dimensioning of staff at day-care centres is governed Training of Preschool teachers
by the Decree on
Children’s Day Care. Previously, the Decree determined the group sizes
for day-care centres
Pre school teachers under MOE is trained by MOE and universities
and family day care. Nowadays, regulation of the size of child groups at
day-care centres
has been replaced by regulation of the staff to children ratio. One organisation conducting a systematic regular courses for
private preschool teachers is the The Malaysian Association of Kinder
Personnel – i.e. a post-secondary level qualification. Other people with
gartens (PTM). PTM has a current membership of over 5000. PTM
care and education
duties must have an upper secondary level qualification. conducts regular nine steps in-service
According to the Decree, there must be at least one trained member of courses on “Skills Training for preschool teachers‟ during school
staff to a maximum holidays.
of seven children in day care, who have reached the age of three. For Attendance certificates are awarded to participants who have completed
younger children, the courseswhich consists of the following modules
there must be at least one person with vocational education to a
maximum of four children.
With regard to children aged three or over in part-time care, the ratio of
staff to children is
1:13.
In the last few decades

Heads of day-care centres are mostly kindergarten teachers or social

educators in terms of
their educational background; in the near future, they will probably also
include Bachelors
of Education and Masters of Education or of Early Childhood Education
and Care.
43
Children in need of special care and education must be taken into
account in the number of
personnel with care and educational responsibilities, unless the day-care
centre concerned
has a special assistant for any such children. There is usually a special
kindergarten teacher
in an integrated special group or special group in the day-care centre. In
large municipalities
there are also itinerant special kindergarten teachers and other
rehabilitation staff.
In addition, day-care centres include other staff mainly carrying out
kitchen and cleaning
tasks.

Staff qualifications and dimensioning in family day care

IN FAMILY day care, child minders usually operate alone when caring
for children at
home. A family day-care home may care for a maximum of four
children at the same time,
including the family child minder’s own children under school age. In
addition to these,
such a group may include one child in part-time care, who attends
pre-school education or
school.
In group family day care, there are usually two child minders; for
specific reasons and allowing
for local conditions, there may also be three child minders with their
groups. In this
case, one of the family child minders must have at least an upper
secondary level qualification.
The suitability of family child minders has not really been justified with
vocational or educational
requirements but with personal qualities and traditional family
know-how.

Programme Programme
The objectives enable ensuring in advance Eachyear the school inspectorate will organise collaborative preschool
inspection wherethe various divisions within MOE who has specific
that this activity is sufficiently versatile and supports children’s
Preschool Unit will take part. Thisreport would be sent up to the
development. The
Minister of Education for further action. In the 2005collaborative
decision-makers providing day care must be aware of the use of funds. preschool inspection conducted from June to August of 2005, a total
In terms of evaluating of141 MOE preschools (46 urban, 91 rural) were inspected for a whole
day lesson. Thearea of inspection includes teaching and learning,
the activities, it is important for planning to be carried out diligently. management and usage of teachingand learning materials, safety
Evaluation makes measures, facilities provided, parental and communityinvolvement.In
it possible to establish the extent to which the activities have met the the year 2007 two major studies on preschool education were conducted
objectives they are set. byMOE, these are EPRD Study and CDC Study (refer to Table 4, pg
27). Part of the
focus of EPRD‟s study is the implementation of NPC whereas CDC
Study was
wholly on the implementation of NPC, specifically the classroom
PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION is the content-based, pedagogically teaching andlearning.
oriented part of early Teaching and Learning Approaches
childhood education and care. Pre-school education means systematic Finding from the 2005 School Inspectorate inspection showedthat all
and conscious support the public preschools visited were using the National Preschool
for the growth, development and learning of children. The activities are Curriculum(NPC). It was found that 79.5 % of the teachers were using
based on pedagogical the learning through playmethod, 83.6% were using the thematic
approach and 78% using the integratedapproach.CDC study adopted
awareness of children’s development, the continuous nature of learning two research methodologies: questionnaire and classroomobservation.
and its significance In the questionnaire, teachers were asked to fill in their perception
oftheir level of understanding and their view of the usefulness of the
to children, and on knowledge of the subject field. A central foundation
various teachingand learning approaches. Respondents were also asked
for
about the approaches theyused in teaching the various components
learning in pre-school education is formed by the peer group, play and (there are six componets in the NPC:Language and Communication,
activities offered by Spirituality and Moral, Cognitive development,Physical development,
Sosio-emotional development, Creativity and Aesthetics).With a Likert
adults. Children learn everywhere, and learning is not tied to specific scale of 1 to 5, the average mean is listed in Table 25.
instances of preschool
education. Instead of managing teaching methods, it is more important
in pre-school
education to understand the special character of childhood and
childhood learning.
Language and Communication 3623 3.81 0.771D1b
Pre-school education involves exploring various phenomena together Cognitive development 3627 3.90 0.738D1c Physical development 363
with children in a 6 4.08 0.732D1d Creativity and aesthetics development

thematic and project-type manner, and topics are studied holistically in

different subject
Sosioemotional development 3614 3.85 0.767D1f Spirituality and mor
fields. Many of the pre-school subject fields form a flexible continuum al 3382 3.66 0.862D2 I find that students are able to achieve the learni
with the topics dealt ng outcome better ifLearning through Play is used
in:D2a Language and Communication 3610 3.82 0.827D2b
with in the initial education at school. Pre-school education builds a Cognitive development 3623 3.95 0.763D2c Physical development 361
bridge between day 9 4.10 0.707D2d Creativity and aesthetics development 3607 4.02 0.73
care and school instruction. 2D2e Sosioemotional development 3597 3.93 0.776D2f Spirituality an
d moral 3358 3.75 0.838D3 I always use Thematic
At present, there are various practices in the planning and approach for the following components:D3a Language and Communic
implementation of pre-school ation 3634 4.19 0.698D3b
Cognitive development 3629 3.97 0.796D3c Physical development 352
education, but as from 1st August 2000, pre-school education for all
3 3.89 0.855D3d Creativity and aesthetics development 3625 4.14 0.72
children participating
0D3e Sosioemotional development 3614 3.91 0.844D3f Spirituality an
in free-of-charge pre-school education is to be organised in accordance d moral 3358 3.80 0.903D4 I find that students are able to achieve the l
with a curriculum earning outcome better ifThematic approach is used
in:D4a Language and Communication 3634 4.05 0.755D4b
drawn up on the basis of the national core curriculum. Cognitive development 3619 3.86 0.800D4c Physical development 360
5 3.80 0.836D4d Creativity and aesthetics development 3622 4.03 0.74
3D4e Sosioemotional development 3601 3.79 0.856D4f Spirituality an
d moral 3336 3.69 0.913D5 I encounter problems using Thematic appr
The law states that a rehabilitation plan should be drawn up for children oach in teaching the followingcomponents:D5a Language and Commu
in need of special nication 3574 2.29 1.095D5b
Cognitive development 3597 2.49 1.142D5c Physical development 359
care and education to support the monitoring of growth and learning. 5 2.51 1.118D5d Creativity and aesthetics development 3567 2.34 1.08
Planning and implementation 2D5e Sosioemotional development 3577 2.56 1.107D5f Spirituality an
of special day care require co-operation with other bodies. In several d moral
municipalities,
there is a special day-care working group, whose task is to monitor the
need for and the
provision of special day care, to co-operate in the development of
special day care and, NPC proposed various teaching and learning activities. The usual
teaching andlearning activities conducted in MOE preschools is listed in
where necessary, to negotiate the organisation of special day care for Table 26. Activitiessuggested by NPC but not frequently conducted by
individual children. MOE preschool teachers are sand play, water play, exploring, dan
According to local needs, the working group includes representatives of „
health care services,
main pondok
the social sector, child guidance and family counselling and the school
‟
sector.

Question & answer 83.7 Colouring 79.4 Storytelling 78.0 Singing 71.6

Learning through play 79.5 52.6Thematic approach 83.6 49.1Integrate

d approach 78.0 45.6ICT in teaching and learning 28.4 29.8

The Special Education Preschool Curriculum was formulated

in2006 adaptedfrom the NPC. The Special Education Preschool
Section of MOE conduct inservicecourses for teachers teaching in these
special schools. They also attend coursesconducted by CDC for the
regular preschool teachers.CDC study investigated the many facets of
preschool education including
teacher‟s perception of their own ability in various fields, understanding
of the
curriculum, the practice of the various approaches, the use of workbook
etc. CDCstudy included 28 special education preschool teachers.
Findings from thequestionnaire indicates that there is not much
differences between teachers fromspecial education and from regular
preschools. The mean score is quite similar exceptfor certain items in
evaluation. Special education preschool teachers scored higher interm of
preparing anecdote, running record, checklist, this is probably due to the
needfor such record in the special education school

Community-based Rehabilitation Centers are set up by the Department

ofSocial Welfare in the Ministry of Woman, Family and Community
Development.These centers provide integrated program to the
special people (children and adult) preparing them to be independent
and integrated into the society. Department ofSocial Welfare run the
following course to train helpers in these centers.

The use of teaching and learning aids

It was found that 61.6% of the MOE preschools teachers used teaching
andlearning aids especially for the language and communication
component as well as thecreativity and aesthetics component. Other
than these, MOE preschool teachers oftencarry out routine
learning activities without utilising apparatus/ instruments providedfor
their teaching and learning by the Ministry of Education. In fact, these
teacherswere found to be lacking in creativity to utilise some of the toys
and
instruments provided. Those apparatus are therefore either under utilise
d or their usage notoptimised ( School Inspectorate Report, 2005). CDC
study showed a mean of 3.95
for preparation of a variety of teaching aids and a mean of 4.15 for pre
paration ofteaching aids using local materials (Likert scale of 1-5).

Child health services in Malaysia started since 1950s as part of the

maternaland child health programme. Since then the programme has
been gradually rolled outto all Health and Community Clinics in rural
and urban areas. Among the servicesavailable are routine visits and
examination for children, immunization, assessment ofchild growth and
development, assessment of nutritional status which
includesmeasurement of weight and height. Health education to the
parents is carried outduring child health clinic sessions
whenever necessary. Child health programmes are being planned
continuously according to the c
Quality of ECCE program is discussed in the area ofcurriculum and its implementation, teacher training, physical environment andfacilities