Is childcare services related to pre-school education? It seems more than a coincidence that a few days ago, the Minister of Education talked about pre-school and, now, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community is talking about childcare services.
Although both issues seem unrelated, but in reality, both politicians are commenting on the exact same issue. Simply, the connection lies in private pre-school centres are also childcare services. They are 2-in-1. It is a trend, especially in urban areas, that these childcare centres also provide pre-school education.
Therefore, on the one hand, the Minister of Education suggested absorbing pre-school into the national education, citing the improvement of English as the reason to do so; on the other hand, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community is commenting about the different by-laws and regulation under different local authorities to administer and monitor childcare centres.
This is one sector of education that has a large proportion of private initiatives. In addition, pre-school education also involves at least three Federal ministries and other local authorities. So far, politicians in the two major ministries have proposed some changes and highlighted some problems. It seems to me, the Federal government is "eyeing" to "adopt" pre-school education fully into their jurisdiction.
However, the rationale and objective behind such a policy remain to be seen.
This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate
Although both issues seem unrelated, but in reality, both politicians are commenting on the exact same issue. Simply, the connection lies in private pre-school centres are also childcare services. They are 2-in-1. It is a trend, especially in urban areas, that these childcare centres also provide pre-school education.
Therefore, on the one hand, the Minister of Education suggested absorbing pre-school into the national education, citing the improvement of English as the reason to do so; on the other hand, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community is commenting about the different by-laws and regulation under different local authorities to administer and monitor childcare centres.
This is one sector of education that has a large proportion of private initiatives. In addition, pre-school education also involves at least three Federal ministries and other local authorities. So far, politicians in the two major ministries have proposed some changes and highlighted some problems. It seems to me, the Federal government is "eyeing" to "adopt" pre-school education fully into their jurisdiction.
However, the rationale and objective behind such a policy remain to be seen.
This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate
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