week 7 - quality of early childhood professionals - inernational contact sharing

Week 7 blog assignment – quality of early childhood professionals

 

My professional goal is to take what I have learned from this course to help opening a preschool and kindergarten for poor and migrant children in the villages in China. Migrant children refer to those children being left at hometown by the parents as the parents have to work in the city. The children are being taken care either by grandparents or relatives. They are neglected and are left at hometown. Most of the time, they do not have the opportunity to get early childhood education. I have shared this with my international contact in Canada, Winnie Leung.

 

What issues regarding quality and early childhood professionals are being discussed where you live and work?

According to Winnie, the standards and requirements for early childhood professionals in Canada are various. There is no standard requirement for preschool educational professionals. Like her, she does not have any early childhood professional training and she is recruited to work in a preschool center. Some teachers in her school do have a diploma degree or certificate but not degree.

 

What opportunities and/or requirements for professional development exist?

There is no training nor professional development program provided to the teachers or caretakers by their center. During the summer, they have 2 days known as Teacher’s professional development day. Teachers are supposed to take some training courses related to early childhood education. But usually the school will let the teachers find their own training courses in the market and bring back the receipt for reimbursement for the expenses incurred. Some teachers simply take the days off rather than taking any professional development courses. So the rules are rather loose in Canada.

 

What are some of your professional goals?

Winnie likes young children very much. She likes taking care of young children. She would like to take on some early childhood professional diploma course to improve and enhance her knowledge about early childhood education so that she can be a formal teacher in the school.

 

What are some of your professional hopes, dreams, and challenges?

Her dream is to own and run a child care center herself one day.  But it is challenging in Canada as the laws and rules of running a child care center are strict. It is not easy to get a license. Further the financial support from the government is decreasing. It is not easy to make money by owning a child care center.