Comparative Issues and Contexts in Early Childhood

Comparative Issues and Contexts in Early Childhood
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Comparative Issues and Contexts in Early Childhood
In this paper, comparison between Norway’s and Australia’s early childhood
education and care (ECEC) systems will be looked at. Key interest will be paid to the aspect
of improving qualifications, training and working conditions. The quality of the teaching
method can greatly be increased by the presence of well trained and qualified teachers. This
ultimately causes a positive outcome in the growth and knowledge retention of the child.
Better working conditions such as better pay and optimum security in the work places brings
about mental and physical satisfaction among the staff (Mashford and Church, 2011).
Eventually, this leads to provision of better and satisfactory early childhood education and
care services. According to recent research, there exists certain conditions that bring about an
upper edge in the provision of ECEC. These include but not limited to humanly possible
work schedules and time tables, availability of adequate staff, favourable physical working
environment as well as a manager of head-teacher who is supportive and mentors his/her
subordinates.
In Norway, strategies have been put in place to ensure quality ECEC services. These
strategies include employing more staff and training the relevant scholars to become qualified
teachers. However, the shortage of qualified staff in the kindergartens and other education
sectors have been a major menace (Eliassen, 2018). Unqualified staff still work in early
childhood education institutions. To counter effect this challenge, strategies have been in
place to reduce the number of qualified staff with clear quantitative data on check (Taguma,
Litjens and Makowiecki, 2012). Another strategy is to have a number of set requirements to
ensure qualified staff are deployed in these institutions. In terms of balancing the ratio of staff
to children, the Norwegian government have stood out with the comprehensive frame-work
plan. This plan is meant to be a regulation for kindergartens that aims to define the number of
qualified teachers that should be in class, in relation to the students on board.