Benefits of early childhood education

By Fung Lan Yong

In his opening address of the 2009 Malaysian International ECEC Conference, Prime
Minister YAB Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak said, “Every child is precious
and children are assets to our society. They are the most valuable resource of the
nation. I believe that developing a nation and its people begins with early childhood
education. While it is the duty of parents to ensure a child has the opportunities to
develop, it is also the government's responsibility to help parents bring the potential
to fruition. In developing a child’s potential, we are in reality developing the human
capital of the child and of the nation. In carrying out this task, we are enabling the
child to grow holistically so that the child is equipped with the abilities, knowledge
and skills to become a productive member of the nation.”

Snapping synapses in early childhood

Early childhood education plays an important role in the neurological development of
young children. Researchers believe that neurological development greatly depends
on learning that occurs during the earliest years of life and that a young child’s brain
needs certain types of stimulation to develop normally. Such stimulation makes
certain types of learning possible when the child begins school. It also augments the
child’s neural pathways that are responsible for social, emotional and intellectual
development. Early childhood education therefore capitalizes on a vast array of
kinaesthetic, tactile, auditory and olfactory activities that stimulate a child’s brain to
develop to its full potential.

Growing need for quality child care

With more and more women entering the workplace, the number of children requiring
early childhood education also increases. As many women prefer to have an income
nowadays, their children will have to spend their critical early years in day care.
Early childhood education relieves working mothers by offering an appropriate
learning environment for young children to enjoy a quality childcare experience that
fulfils their developmental and socio-emotional needs.

Besides working mothers, the number of single parents in Malaysia is also

increasing. Children from single-parent families tend to be more vulnerable than
those living with both parents as they may receive less parental attention and other
positive, stimulating experiences. Early childhood education will be particularly
beneficial for children from single-parent families as it can increase the parents’
expectations of their children’s performance. Further, children from single-parent
families are at a greater risk of child neglect; early childhood education ensures that
they will receive warm and sensitive care as well as a good start in life.
Many young children from rural and remote areas tend to live in impoverished
environments characterized by poverty, inadequate healthcare, poor infrastructure
and illiteracy. Early childhood education can give children from disadvantaged
backgrounds a head start by providing a developmentally appropriate learning
environment that stimulates their cognitive, verbal and social development. It also
empowers the rural community by increasing parental knowledge and involvement in
child development as well as providing support services related to parenting
practices, job training and counselling.

Currently, many young children do not receive any professional childcare or

preschool education because early childhood programs are either too costly or
unavailable. Moreover, families with limited income are less likely or unable to enrol
their children in early childhood programs, while those who can afford it may find the
services barely adequate or of low quality. Additionally, many childcare facilities do
not provide the kind of quality care needed to enhance children’s social competence
and readiness for school as they tend to have large classes taught by teachers with
limited early childhood qualifications. At present, a majority of the early childhood
teachers and childcare providers in Malaysia are SPM holders who still need pre-
service training to improve their level of professionalism.

Fosters greater school readiness

Early childhood education equips young children with the fundamental knowledge
and skills needed for successful school adjustment and adult competence later on. It
ensures that young children will enter school healthy and ready to succeed.
Moreover, school-based assessment should be conducted as early as preschool in
order to be comprehensive, valid and reliable.

Children who receive early childhood education will have greater readiness to learn
in terms of physical wellbeing, psychomotor skills, social competence and language
ability. They will experience less stress and anxiety because early childhood
education prepares them for the upcoming school year, ensuring a smooth transition
to school life. Further, it allows parents and teachers to find out the child’s
expectations and specific challenges in order to prepare him or her for independent
learning. In brief, early childhood education serves as a window of opportunity for
young children to learn to express their needs, become more proficient readers and
establish more secure relationships with significant others.

Early childhood education strives to provide young children with quality age-
appropriate experiences and care that have a positive impact on their school
achievement and life. Access to high quality childhood education ensures that
young children’s intellectual, language and social needs are adequately met in order
to increase their school readiness and maximize their learning potential. Early
childhood education capitalizes on the child’s crucial stage of life because physical
and mental growth progresses very rapidly during this time. Moreover, the learning
capabilities of humans are more intense during the preschool years. Hence, this is a
period when young children particularly need high quality personal care and learning
experiences to boost their cognitive and psychosocial development.

Provides an individualized, responsive and stimulating environment

Early childhood education aims to provide an individualized, responsive and
stimulating environment that accommodates to the learning style preferences and
developmental needs of young children. It provides many opportunities for children
to interact with peers and adult figures (teachers and parents) without exerting too
much pressure on them. Further, it ensures that all learning activities are age-
appropriate and interesting so that children are motivated to spend part of their day
at school.

Children with special needs can benefit immensely from early childhood education
as it enables those who are physically, emotionally or intellectual challenged to be
tested and diagnosed early in order to receive appropriate instruction. Through early
childhood education, children with special needs will acquire the fundamental
academic and social skills needed for school success; early childhood education
increases their chances to attend regular classes later on while boosting their
confidence and self-esteem.

Additionally, early childhood education makes parents more aware that they are the
primary caregivers who have a tremendous influence on their child’s learning
experience and education during the first few years. Early childhood education
encourages parents to show greater interest in their child’s learning by contributing
to child-care arrangements, such as family babysitting or a parent-toddler group,
which usually embed responsive and stimulating activities that can foster a positive
relationship between parent and child.

Enhances speech, language and literacy

Speech is one of the most important aspects of childhood as it has a long-term
impact on a child’s development. Early childhood education strives to enhance
young children’s language and literacy by providing a socially and culturally
appropriate environment for young children to learn in progressive manner,
beginning with the names of familiar people and objects around them, followed by
action words; after that, they can proceed to learning the words that describe their
world. Early childhood education ensures that caregivers spend sufficient time
communicating with or reading to each child in order to enhance his or her speech
development.

Further, early childhood education incorporates culturally, socially and age-

appropriate techniques to help young children develop their language and literacy
skills by incorporating the presence, time, words, print and intention. Language and
literacy skills learning is a social endeavour for young children; hence, early
childhood education ensures that young learners enjoy an array of meaningful
interactions, experiences and activities that can augment their speaking, listening,
reading and writing skills in a concurrent manner.

Finally, early childhood education ensures that language and literacy acquisition
occurs naturally during play and simple everyday experiences as well as via planned
instruction. It also capitalises on the children's home language and culture to foster
language and literacy via memorable classroom experiences that accommodate
language and cultural differences.

Incorporates functional, constructive and pretend play

Early childhood education employs functional play to enhance young children’s
psychomotor skills through the use of educational toys and other objects. Functional
play encourages young children to use their sight, hearing, vision, taste and smell in
order to learn about the world. Young children tend to be fascinated by the bright
colours of objects, the sounds they make, their feel and textures or their exotic
smells. Further, functional play often turns young children into happy learners as it
produces the pure sensory delights that they can derive from simple objects. Besides
sensory stimulation, the repetitive activities of functional play promote pre-literacy,
creativity, individuality, decision making and problem solving skills.

Besides functional play, early childhood education employs constructive play to help
young children develop vocabulary skills through social interactions with caregivers
and peers. It provides opportunities for young children to make connections between
spoken and written words, besides acquiring new vocabulary and applying it in
different situations. Besides vocabulary, constructive play enhances young children’s
mathematics skills, including quantity, measurement, weight, height, size and other
concepts that involve mathematical language and numeracy. They also learn about
shapes, sorting, matching, seriation and classification.

Further early childhood education uses pretend play (dramatic or imaginary) to

encourage young children to experiment with various social and emotional roles.
They learn how to take turns, share responsibility and engage in creative problem
solving. When they pretend to be different characters, they learn the moral concept
of empathy or being in someone else's shoes. Further, pretend play promotes
language and literacy as it enables young children to realise the power of language.
Additionally, they learn how to re-enact a story or organise a play, allowing them to
see the relationship between spoken and written language. Finally, pretend play
provides young children with a variety of challenges, encouraging them to develop
the cognitive, psychomotor and socio-emotional skills that are essential for academic
achievement and personal growth.

Optimizes the early years

The early years play a crucial role in children’s future physical, cognitive and socio-
emotional development. Optimizing the early years of children’s lives is an important
investment that ensures future success of a country. Research indicates that much
of what an individual needs for professional and personal success is established in
the early years during which he or she develops the cognitive skills needed for
reading, mathematics, science and academics. It is also during this period that he or
she develops character skills, gross-motor skills and executive functioning skills
needed for a fulfilling adult life.

Early childhood education not only benefits the individual but also has significant
socioeconomic impact on society. By investing in young children, the government
can save money in the long run, for instance, less expenditure will be incurred on
solving academic and social problems as early childhood education promotes
academic achievement, which in turn helps reduce dropout, unemployment and
crime rates in the long run. Further, early childhood education results in healthier
lifestyles and greater work productivity in adult life as many health and work related
attitudes are rooted in early childhood experiences. By supporting early childhood
education, the government is investing in the future, that is, young children who will
become the country’s future agents of innovation and change who are capable of
overcoming the nine challenges of Vision 2020.

Implications of early childhood education in Malaysia

Early childhood education in Malaysia should offer curricula that are designed to
meet the needs of a multicultural society, characterized by diversity, integration and
respect for different cultures. It should teach young children to honour diversity and
to acknowledge it as desirable by encouraging them to work in mixed groupings and
using materials that represent realistic linguistic, cultural and social practices of the
community. It should also inculcate greater awareness of the children’s own cultural
identity and the cultures of others, which in turn boosts their self-esteem and makes
them more appreciative of the concepts of unity in diversity, Vision 2020 and
1Malaysia.

Additionally, several critical issues in early childhood education in Malaysia need to

be addressed. First, to become a global player with world-class status, the country
needs to ensure that its citizens receive a multilingual and progressive education
starting from early childhood; hence, it is important that early childhood providers are
adequately trained and proficient in more than one language, especially English.

Second, many stakeholders in Malaysia tend to be academically-oriented; hence,

they need to acknowledge that early childhood education does not attempt to
produce super-kids or learning robots; instead, it usually integrates play and other
extracurricular activities that promote discovery learning, critical thinking, creativity
and innovative problem solving.
Finally, the government and private sector should work together in overcoming the
challenges and constraints of early childhood education in Malaysia. A proper plan
of action is urgently needed to ensure that early childhood education will be
accessible to as many children as possible as it provides a healthy foundation for
their learning and nation-building. To become more progressive, the country needs
to focus on the fundamentals of education first, one of which is equal access to early
childhood education that reflects its cultural diversity and nationhood values.

Finally, the country also needs human capital, which calls for the development of
competent citizens, starting from preschool. Since early childhood education plays a
crucial role in developing the human capital needed for the future success of the
nation, the government and private sector should strive to implement early childhood
programs that advocate for multiculturalism, equity and inclusion in order to develop
a pool of human capital that is resilient and innovative.

About the writer

Fung Lan Yong is currently Assistant Professor at Quest International University
Perak and Honorary Advisor at Jesselton College Sabah. She believes that early
childhood education can give children a head start by providing a developmentally
appropriate learning environment that stimulates their cognitive, verbal and social
development. Early childhood education does not attempt to produce super-kids or
learning robots; instead, it usually incorporates play and other extracurricular
activities that promote discovery learning, critical thinking, creativity and innovative
problem solving. Most importantly, it plays a crucial role in developing the human
capital needed for the future success of the community and nation. To achieve its
goals in relation to Vision 2010 and 1Malaysia, the country needs to focus on the
fundamentals of education first, one of which is equal access to early childhood
education that reflects its cultural diversity and nationhood values.

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