Unveiling Malaysian parents’ perspectives on existing quality of early childhood care and education

Abstract

Introduction. Early childhood care and education is majorly concerning around the world. Malaysian government has formulated childhood care and education national policy and legal framework to protect the rights of childhood. However, the Education Blueprint of Malaysia acknowledged that serious problems still remain with the quality of education and the investment in education is not as high as expected. The objective of the study is to investigate parents' perspectives of quality ECCE programs with regard to center characteristics of environment, teachers, principals, curriculum as well as parent's communication and involvement opportunities. Materials and methods. Study has selected mix method approach where parent perspectives of existing quality of early childhood care and education (ECCE) in the selected states of Malaysia been obtained. The 629 questionnaires samples were distributed among the parent 's having a child in a pre-school and 22 parents took part in the focus group interviews, designed to elicit their perspectives of ECCE programs with regard to center characteristics, environment, teachers, principals, and curriculum as well as parent involvement and communication opportunities Results. Demographically results shows 60.8% female and 39.2% male participants have contributed with 32% age 31-35 years old, about 38.1% Malay followed by 32.2% Chines and 18% Indian ethnicity races were part of this study. The standard deviation analysis indicated that Parents’s perceptive on Centre Characteristics is (M=4.039, SD= 0.796) Parents’ Views on Environment (M=3.582, SD=0.953); Parents’ Views on Teachers and Principals (M=4.197, SD=0.731) Parents’ Views on Curriculum ((M=3.735, SD=0.771) and Parents’ Views on Parent Communication and Involvement Opportunities (M=4.171, SD=0.630). The overall statistical analysis shows parents’ perceptive is satisfactory on the quality of ECCE programmes. Conclusion. Study has concluded that parents have found ECCE programmes much effective where children not only enjoy but their learning improves. Parents have appreciated the quality of hygiene level and facilities in pre-school are up to the mark and standard but further can be improved. Quality of curriculum should have multilingual instruction and play based teaching and learning is suggested by the parent’s to improve.

Learning through Play in Early Childhood: A Systematic Review

“…This entails a growing public understanding of learning through play for child development and enhancing learning effectiveness and quality. This is consistent with numerous present studies which parents have positive perspectives on ECCE programs (Tang et al, 2021;Carolan et al, 2021;Hyun et al, 2021;Keung & Cheung, 2019;Egan & Beatty, 2021;Timmons et al, 2021;Matsumoto et al, 2021;Timmons et al, 2021) We have identified 36 articles with play element in relation to this work. Based on the analysis, there is a clear trend of increasing on educational support tools.…”

“…Another study by Tang et al (2021) examined parents' perceived satisfaction with the quality of ECCE programs. The parents reported that the ECCE programs are much more effective where children did not only enjoy but also have their learning increased.…”

Exploring Preschool Parents’ Understanding of Play-based Learning and its Importance in Early Childhood Education

“…The review which discusses how parents viewed PBL, points out that the roles and functions of parents and teachers were found to be significant in supporting the implementation of play-based learning in preschool settings. It also delineated based on various research findings from the systematic review that most parents knew the importance of play and have agreed with the implementation of PBL in their child's preschool settings as they observed that children who spend time playing educational screen-based games or teacher-structured PBL not only enjoyed their learning but also performed academically better (Tang et al, 2021;Carolan et al, 2021;Hyun et al, 2021;Keung & Cheung, 2019;Egan & Beatty, 2021;Timmons et al, 2021;Matsumoto et al, 2021;Timmons et al, 2021). Nonetheless, although parents do finally understand that play-based learning is important for the child's development, a major concern in the context of Malaysia among parents has and will always be about play-based learning and its impact on children's academic success.…”

Determinants of Service Quality Factors and Parent Satisfaction in Childcare Centre

“…Emerging trends show new-generation parents have higher expectations, including educational environment, health and safety, staff-to-child ratio, and staff qualifications. Failing to meet these expectations has resulted in growing parental discontent (Dan Dan et al, 2021;Rahmatullah et al, 2021).…”