Preschools must have trained teachers, not glorified nannies

 

From Jerrica Fatima Ann

Losing a child is a terrible trauma for any parent. My heart aches for the grieving mother of the four-year-old who drowned on his first day at an Ipoh preschool.

The tragic news saddened me, as someone with a career in early childhood education, and also sent shivers down my spine as I recalled the near calamity at my own workplace only a few weeks earlier, when two small children almost drowned in the swimming pool.

Four teachers were supervising “water play”, two in the water with the children and two keeping watch. Yet, when the children slipped and sank, their caretakers wasted precious seconds screaming in panic.

Luckily, someone pulled them out in the nick of time. Luck, by definition, is a fickle friend, especially when teachers have no training as lifeguards and don’t receive regular training in CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).

Given enough time, a tragedy is inevitable at any big-name private preschool around the country.

The rot in the system

The Ipoh toddler’s drowning is a symptom of the rot in early childhood education in Malaysia, specifically in the private sector.

We are all responsible for this boy’s death: the schools, the parents, the teachers, the system.

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Allow me to introduce the two principal actors in this long-running farce and how their attitudes keep perpetuating the slide in early childhood education standards.

Firstly, the private preschools. They take the lion’s share of the blame. To maximise profits, they routinely hire unqualified individuals as teachers who lack qualifications in early childhood education or special needs education.

Can we really expect children to experience meaningful learning under these circumstances? Can we truly trust such individuals to help unlock a child’s latent potential? To keep them safe?

A trained special needs teacher has the tools to identify an autistic child during a brief interaction. How many of such teachers do our supposedly “inclusive” preschools hire?

Glorified nannies

Why doesn’t the government regulate such hiring? It pains me to report that the term “ECE practitioner” has become a tired joke. Preschools have cast us as glorified nannies and not deliverers of crucial developmental learning.

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Most preschool teachers are way overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated. Many of us never make a living wage and often the best and brightest quit the industry altogether.

How would you feel if your employer treated you, with a degree or diploma in early childhood education, the same as an SPM holder? Or if they paid you the same rate as fast-food workers or manual labourers, even when they charge parents exorbitant fees?

Parents are the second guilty party. There appears to be a proportional relationship between the affluence of parents and their utter disregard for the details of their children’s education.

Cosmetic grandeur

They’re easily smitten by the cosmetic grandeur of preschool facilities, of flash over substance: swimming pools, smart boards, state-of-the-art curricula following some fill-in-the-blank Western nation, much of which is marketing fodder and implemented only in name.

Hard as it may be to believe, never in my years of working at preschools has a parent approached me or asked school management for proof of my qualifications or that of another class or subject teacher.

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Perhaps parents are unaware that their indifference diminishes the return on their investment; perhaps they are clueless about the value of education in the formative years. Ultimately, it is the child’s loss – hopefully only in learning and not their very lives.

Changes to be made

A total revamp of the system is imperative.

Preschools must hire qualified teachers. Anyone who doesn’t meet the minimum benchmark must undergo rigorous training to prove themselves worthy.

Preschool teachers deserve compensation on par with their qualifications: those who have spent years at university deserve wages reflective of their training.

All staff must receive regular training in first aid and CPR, at least every quarter, if not sooner. This is doubly important because preschools experience a higher-than-average turnover.

Finally, parents must look past the preschool window dressing and concern themselves with the nuts and bolts of their children’s education. What use are first-rate facilities if their child can’t hold a pencil properly after two years? - FMT

Jerrica Fatima Ann is an early childhood educator and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.