|
There is significant interest in Australasia in early childhood workforce development, with many countries making this a focus of current policy development. For example, the outcomes of the framework for the National Early Childhood Development Strategy for Australia (Council of Australian Governments, 2009) envisages an early childhood service system that will empower parents/families/communities, have high–quality programmes, community outreach, focus on promotion and prevention, and will be responsive to local needs. The Early Years Learning Framework is one of the strategies aimed at working towards this outcome. Sumsion, Barnes, Cheeseman, Harrison, Kennedy and Stonehouse discuss their experiences in developing this framework and help us understand why it was developed the way it is. Another of the key factors influencing our ability to achieve this vision is the early childhood workforce – '… their qualification levels and ongoing training, their motivation, and their interaction with families and children' (Council of Australian Governments, 2006, p. 20).
In addressing workforce issues, the Singapore Workforce Development Agency in consultation with the Ministry of Manpower, National Trades Union congress and the Singapore National Employers Federation offer a financial support scheme for workers to upgrade their skills and resilience. A working party is currently attempting to establish fair work roles and appropriate salaries to match for early childhood staff (see www.seedinstitute.com.sg/). Training programmes for early childhood are now regulated in terms of course content, and the duration of training has increased.
New Zealand's early childhood strategic plan, Pathways to the Future (Ministry of Education, 2002) identifies the need to increase the number of early childhood staff with qualifications in order to increase service quality for children and families, using the Diploma of Teaching (ECE) as the benchmark. By 2012 all regulated staff in every teacher-led service will be required to be registered teachers. Scholarships, time release, mentoring, incentive grants and a focus on the needs of Mäori and Pasifika learners are all strategies used to work towards the targeted outcome.
Early childhood professionals come from a variety of different backgrounds with different pre-service training (ranging from no formal training through paraprofessional to university–level qualifications), access to professional development, pay scales, status and working conditions. A shortage of staff from Indigenous and other minority backgrounds across Australasia can make it particularly challenging to deliver quality services in some communities. We all know the complexities of the issues facing us in developing the early childhood workforce and we know that progress needs to be made on multiple issues. We need to improve the perceived value of early childhood services, so that resourcing our sector is seen as a high priority in comparison to other calls on government and other funding. We need to improve pay and conditions (including creating career structures) to help improve intake into courses and retention of qualified staff. We need to improve the quality of our qualifications; both in what students learn in their courses and the duration of their courses. We need to improve the quality of our professional development and mentoring so that effective and appropriate learning continues in the workplace.
In thinking about this complexity, I sometimes feel swamped: Where do we start given that all of these things are linked? For example how reasonable is it to expect Diploma staff with two years of training to undertake ongoing reflection of the translation of theory into their own practice? Particularly when they are often paid less than many garbage collectors? Is it reasonable and appropriate to expect a four year trained early childhood staff member to take on programming responsibilities for all the children across a centre, just because they have two more years of training than the Diploma staff actually working with the children every day? I don't know the answers to these questions. I wish I did. But right now, what I can do is take one more step in the right direction: Offer another opportunity aimed at challenging our early childhood professionals to think about their practice in order to improve the quality of the service delivered. Breen argues that the assumptions we make about family and ability/disability significantly impair our ability to offer services that address issues of social justice/social inclusion. Given that early years services are internationally positioned as having the potential to reduce disadvantage, this is something our workforce and our workforce educators need to address urgently. Alter, Hays and O'Hara made me reflect on the issue of specialist versus generic teachers. As an avowed generalist, I believe that a well–trained professional can offer programmes to meet the needs of the whole child: Addressing arts, mathematics, science, literacy, health, emotional and social development etc. And then I remember the difficulties I experienced when developing courses to fit all of that into a three or four year pre-service university course (let alone a two year Diploma). Alter, Hays and O'Hara reminded me that arts education includes music, visual arts, drama and dance—surely a broad range of skills—and as a person for whom stick figures were the crowning achievement in art classes—I begin to wonder again about the role of specialists.
Barr, Saltmarsh and Klopper add to the complexity. They discuss safety education and remind us of the importance of considering a range of issues in our safety education including road/traffic, fire, water, and farm safety. Again, I like to think of myself as being reasonably well educated but I know I do not feel competent to address all of these areas without support. Luckily, Barr and colleagues present some ideas that will help me here. And just when I am starting to feel barely competent again, along come Lee and Ginsburg, and Warren, deVries and Cole who both discuss mathematics. Now I figured I had a pretty good handle on this, but I found that I have a lot more to learn. Both of these articles offered some new and fresh ideas. And I learned a new word: Subitisation. Although I've been using this strategy for years, only now do I know what to call it. These two articles could help practitioners make conscious some of the work they are already doing, and help them develop ongoing supports to enhance children's learning.
Finally, we have the article by Edwards, Blaise and Hammer. Now I love multiage grouping and did quite a bit of work in this area in the early 90s. When I read this article it felt like revisiting an old friend with a new twist. Edwards, Blaise and Hammer show us that practitioners using multiage grouping tend to conceptualise their work using a developmental framework. Given that we have been recently challenging the supremacy of the developmental perspective in early childhood, it is time we also challenged our understanding of multiage grouping. Perhaps a new way of thinking may help us to open up new ways of creating learning opportunities for children.
I present to you this latest edition of AJEC and hope that you will enjoy the challenges these authors have posed for us.
Margaret Sims
University of New England
References
Council of Australian Governments (2006). National Action Plan on Mental Health 2006 - 2011. Canberra: Council of Australian Governments. Retrieved 17 January 2008, www.health.gov.au
Council of Australian Governments (2009). Investing in the early years - a national early childhood development strategy. Canberra, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia.
Ministry of Education (2002). Pathways to the future: Ngä Huarahi Arataki. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood – Volume 34 No 4 December 2009, pp. 2–3.
Don't forget, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood is tax deductible for early childhood professionals
You can purchase this issue of the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood now.
|
