Early Childhood Education in Singapore

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE
Early Childhood Education in Singapore
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1EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE
Early childhood education is indicative of a branch in relation to education theory that
talks about the teaching of the young children till the age of eight. The early childhood
education plays an important role in the development of children and is crucial for the mental
formation of the children. This essay discusses about the early childhood education in
Singapore and the early years landscape pertaining to education.
Singapore is regarded as a cosmopolitan along with multilingual society. Singapore
was a British colony at the time of the Second World War and in the year 1963 she was
joined by Malaysia. Singapore has got a high standard in relation to living and employment.
The careful planning on the part of the government has been manifested with the help of
social achievements. The national priority within Singapore has been laid on that of the
preschool sector in the modern age when there is the burgeoning of international research.
The preschool services falls under two categories: kindergarten and that of childcare centres.
It helps in reflecting on the split between that of ‘care’ and that of ‘education’. Kindergarten
is an educational setting that helps in supporting academic development of the young
children. The childcare centre on the other hand assume that of a broader function and
encompasses a wide range of areas (Elango et al., 2015). The development of that of
childcare centre has been very dramatic. There has been a great increase in that of child care
center number in Singapore. Child care helps in exposing the children to different attributes
that can help them in socializing with the other children that can prove to be helpful for them
in the long run.
In the event of early education, the teacher should become attuned to the
understanding of the children so that they can lure the child forward to that of new conceptual
understanding. Vygotsky has stressed on the aspect of “zone of proximal development” in
which the learning of the child takes place with the help of perceptive guidance from the
teacher. The pre-school teacher should encourage the children to discover on their own how

2EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN SINGAPORE
they can arrive at the solution. According to research, it has been suggested that word
problems instead of three dimensional picture was difficult for the children for solving
(Bredekamp, 2016). The word problems need symbolic mental solution that proves to be
more difficult for the young children. It shows that enactive learning that have three-
dimensional materials can prove to be easier than that of iconic learning that is possessed of
two-dimensional material. Symbolic verbal classification can prove to be hard for the young
children.
The government helps in providing two types of the subsidies that can help in
boosting development pertaining to preschool facilities. It encourages the parents so that they
place their children in the child care centre. The subsidies are provided to the employers so
that the child care center can be established. Bilingualism helps in permeating the aspect of
education within Singapore. English acts as the instructing language at different levels of
education- primary, secondary and post-secondary (Eliason & Jenkins, 2015). The children
have to study another language apart from that of the first language. The second language is
held to be one language from that of Mandarin Chinese, Malay and that of Tamil. English
acts as the language that can help in international communication and it can help in getting
access to that of modernization. High status is provided to that of English, Science along with
Technology. The Montessori Theory of Learning focusses on multi-aged grouping that is on
the basis of period of development (Van Hoorn et al., 2014). The high school years prove to
be a time of intellectual work and the child should go through critical thinking in the early
years that can help them in evolving into a responsible individual. It focuses on the aspect of
independent research by enabling the children to do problem solving.
The teachers have to undergo the three level training programme that can help in
improving the quality of their teaching. The childcare assistant, teachers along with
supervisors are provided with the necessary amount of training at the different levels- basic,