My International Contacts Discuss Equality and Excellence

My first contact is K. Corr. She is located in Dungannon, N. Ireland, which is about 45 miles west of Belfast.  This week I asked her a few questions about equalitu and excellence. When discussing what her opinion of excellence was she told me that she believed  it consisted of highly motivated staff, classrooms that offered a wide range of experiences both indoors & outdoors, staff who constantly engage in further learning & new experiences, and  staff who work with parents/carers & families as a unit.

K. Corr personally believes that children should be in home setting until they are 3, but if they have to be in daycare then it needs to be a pretty special place where they have time to be individuals rather than part of a large group. She also do believe that all children should attend a preschool before starting formal education,since it is a gentle way to ease them into the system.

I asked her if all children had access to early childhood education in Ireland.  She shared that they now have a programme called "Time to be me" for 2-3 year olds form disadvantaged backgrounds, this is run by Sure Start, a government funded agency, they work with parents & children, teaching skills through play. The children attend for four days with one of those days having their parents attend to play with their children. All children are entitled to a free preschool place the year before they start school, but they have more children than places and some end up in less than good settings.

K. Corr also stated that grographical location plays a big part in contributing to the lack of childcare/early childhood programs, because there are more pre-school places in the cities than in rural areas. 
Economics also play a role because parents who both work are penalized at the preschool stage as their children are bottom of the list of criteria when applying.  Finally, race is also a contirbuting factor.  According to K. Corr, alot of migrants do not realize that their children can start preschool at the age of 3, as in their countries it is much later, therfore they often miss this opportunity.

My second contact is S. Sheih. She is working as a Supervisor in a day care center in Singapore.
S. Sheih defines excellence as and educator who provides a  personal touch on an individual child and familiy.

She strongly believes that all children should benefit from excellent childcare and education, but in Singapore, not all children have access to excellent childcare and education.  In Singapore, they do have programs available to families that offer assistance for quality childcare and/or education.  There are government subsidies which will reduce some finacial load for parents. If parents are from well to do families, they could send their kids to a childcare with higher quality. With this subsidy, the parents will pay slightly higher then the normal childcare fee to benifit from quality childcare service.  S. Sheih stated that location in Singapore is the largest factor that contributes to the lack of childcare/education available to some children and families.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As educators, we can all agree that early childhood needs to be focus of the child as a whole.  K. Corr stated that in Ireland grographical location, socioeconomic status, and race are factors that creat inequalities in their early childhood programs.  These are the same factors that are affecting the children in the US.  In Singapore, S. Sheih stated that location was definitely the greatest contributing factor.  Even though education programs can be very different around the world, there are still many inequalities that we share.