So still no words from my
international counterparts…starting to feel as though that assignment was a
little unreachable. Thank goodness there was always and alternative assignment
available. I was sort of surprised that
I still haven’t even got a response from the World Forum Foundation question I
submitted a while ago. Oh well I guess
everyone is really busy making the world a better place for children.
This week we were to explore “UNESCO”
ECE website as an alternate. I looked around a bit and right away an article
snagged my attention. It was titled “What
Are the Three Most Important Skills for a Child?” Unfortunately, like with most
sites I have been exploring in the ECE the article could not be found. That lead me to remember that this week in
our discussion board the conversation came up about some early childhood
teacher seeing themselves as non-professional in their work with children and
how it holds the field back as a whole. This sort of thing, putting resources
out there that are not accessible, makes us look also as though we don’t have
our ducks in a row. I think sometimes in
our attempt to prove our worthiness we cut our noses off to spite our faces…and
we really need to stop.
So
onto another wild goose chase it was. I found another article that I read
called “Bite Off Only as Much as You Can Chew”: Gambia’s
Policy for Early Childhood. It began with a brief background of the
early childhood education program being set up in Gambia. I have included a
little snip it of the transcript of the conversation, it is quite interesting
to read…
C: When
early childhood is embraced within the formal education system, the idea of
universal provision is often debated. Was the idea of universalising one year
of
early childhood
not considered?
S: Yes, it
was considered. We examined the possibility of lowering the entry age into
primary school to 6 years, universaling 6-year-olds’ access to education. But
according
to projections it would be too costly for the Government to handle without
external support. The idea was dropped because of the problem of
sustainability.
C: I guess
the education sector’s plan to expand the current free compulsory education
from 6 years to 9 years must have been another factor discouraging
universalisation
at the early childhood level.
S: That’s
right. The Sector was clear about its priority, but it was fully convinced of
the importance of early childhood and tried to find an alternative way to
promote
it, which was to set up ECD Centres on the premises of primary schools.
C: If the
ECD Centre option was deemed less costly, where would the presumed savings come
from?
S: Though
the word centre may conjure up in people’s mind a
building, the ECD Centres that we are considering are more like playgrounds,
with sheds
contributed
and set up by the communities. So there is a cost saving for building
infrastructure.
C: But even
in sheds, in order to have a programme you need materials and, especially,
trained teachers.
S: As we do
not yet have a curriculum for the ECD Centres, 7 they will run, for the time
being, more like playgrounds, with no fixed programme, with the teachers
C: But even
in sheds, in order to have a programme you need materials and, especially,
trained teachers.
S: As we do
not yet have a curriculum for the ECD Centres, they will run, for the time
being, more like playgrounds, with no fixed programme, with the teachers responsible
more for child-minding than for their learning process.
C: How
would you supply the teachers?
Senghore: We have
introduced a polyvalent teacher training framework, under which primary school
teachers are now certified by the Government to teach early
childhood
as well. Once the plan is approved and implemented, each school principal will
assign one of these polyvalently trained teachers to the new ECD
Centre.
C: This is
a strategic way of securing at least one government-paid and -trained teacher
for each ECD Centre, but in order for it to happen, the primary schools
will each
have to lose a teacher to the ECD Centre in the shed.
Sanneh:
In
the absolute sense, yes. So the Government plans to recruit more primary school
teachers. But we figured that it would still be more cost effective
than to
meet the workforce needs of early childhood through early childhood
specialists.
C: What is
your plan for 0-2-year-olds?
S: They are
taken care of by other sectors and the education
sector does not plan to involve itself with them.
C: Is
parenting education the major approach for 0-2-year-olds?
S: It is,
but parenting education is an important component stressed in all services
provided by all stakedholders of the multi-sectoral framework including
the
education sector.
C: Do you
think it is necessary to be concerned with younger children?
S: It would
be ideal for the education sector to be equally concerned with the earlier
years. But in terms of the sector’s resource capacity, that is not possible, at
least for now. One should bite off only as much as one can chew. We have taken
up the responsibility for 3-6-yearolds; it is our priority to fulfill this
responsibility of ours as best as we can.
The first thing I had to look up was the word polyvalent, and
consider what it meant as a descriptor for a teacher of young children, which
by the way, given the definition I was unable to figure it out.
POLYVALENT: ADJECTIVE
1. Chemistry having more
than one valence.
2. Bacteriology (of
an immune serum) containing several antibodies, each capable of reacting with a
specific antigen.
I also took
away from the conversation transcript that infant toddler care is neither
accessible or being prioritized. In addition, that due to lack of qualified
teachers they were going to you “elementary education” type teacher in these
rolls more as babysitters than early childhood teacher, with no curriculum
planned. Moreover, something that really made me think even more critically
about was that they did not want to invest money in training ECE teachers
specifically. Now because I do not have any concept about what education in
general looks like in Gambia, I can only assume that it is similar to the
US. I would question why an elementary
teacher would be acceptable to place in a preschool setting. I have seen how it does not necessarily work
here, this makes for unattainable, inappropriate goals and standards for the
children, right? Although I know it happens here, quite frequently I think we
can all agree it is not best practice.
I guess in
my mind this thinking defeats our purpose of having quality teacher education,
accessible and developmentally appropriate programs for children…much the same
as we have previously seen in the U.S.—they really are not much different than
us. Sad. Let’s not strive for excellence; let’s not bite off more than we can
chew…
References
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/access-and-equity/
