Foundation of ECE — The Early Educators
Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” the question here is — are our educators empowered enough to bring the change we expect of them?
The question is particularly relevant when talking about teachers in Early Childhood Education (ECE) because, unlike grade schools (Std1-Std12), this field is relatively new and unorganized. Research shows that if a child has access to ‘quality’ ECE, it improves their chances of better outcomes at higher learning levels, higher educational attainment, and lower dropouts. Quality ECE is one of the ways to narrow the achievement gap in students from economically marginalized communities as it improves their school readiness, thus nudging them to the path of educational and social success. Let’s pause here and ask the question again — is an ECE educator equipped enough to bring about the change we expect of them?
The answer to this question isn’t simple and would require collaboration across the board, both in the government and private sectors. This article, supported by secondary research, is a small part of a more extensive study conducted by KEF in collaboration with Ek-Step Foundation. With this more comprehensive study, we hope to begin a dialogue in the larger ECE community on our early educators’ existing challenges and future needs.
As we mull over the critical question posed above, let us first explore who an early childhood educator is? What are the options and opportunities available to an aspiring early childhood educator? To answer this, we tried mimicking the process that anyone in today’s world would do to access information, a Google search. We limited our search to teacher training programs accessible to teachers in Karnataka. A quick look told us that most of our data came from institutes that catered to the technologically savvy demographic and had updated websites. These institutes were clustered in and around Bangalore. To ensure more representation, we searched for institutes that provided nursery/Montessori teacher’s training within specific districts in Karnataka. Most of these institutes either had no websites or had outdated web pages. Information was collected via phone conversation for searches with a valid phone number. Many smaller institutes with no presence on Google are therefore missing from our sample set.
Looking closely at the data, we observed commonalities among various institutes regarding qualification requirements, content structure, duration, mode of delivery, cost, and placement assistance.
- Qualification: The essential requirement for any candidate to join the course is a 10th pass with knowledge of English. Some institutes that offered diplomas required a 12th pass certificate or a graduate degree from the candidates.
- Course Content: Almost all the institutes we found listed some variation of ‘Health and Safety, ‘Pedagogy,’ and ‘Child Development’ for the basic Nursery Teacher Training (NTT) certification. Since details within these topics were not available, it is hard to say if the contents across the board were comparable. What appeared missing in the basic teacher training was classroom management, curriculum development, and language arts. These courses were typically included in the advance certificate or diploma courses.
- Mode of delivery: Almost all institutes provide a purely online or blended form of course delivery. And only 1 offered full-time in-person classes.
- Internship: 3 out of 17 offered some form of internship or in-class training as part of the certification.
- Cost of course: The cost for the basic certification ranged from 10k to 30k
- Placement Assistance: Almost all institutes guarantee 100% assistance with job placement. Placement assistance included resume preparation, interview preparation, and in a few cases, an experience certificate (through an unpaid internship).
- Certification and Validity: Most of the institutes we looked at have tie-ups with some external governing bodies like CENTA, NCT, American Montessori Society, etc., for the accreditation of their certification. Some institutes did not have accreditation information listed on their websites. Without a joint governing body for accreditation, it could be challenging for an aspiring early educator to determine what quality training is. This might make their journey seeking quality training that much more difficult.
Coming back to the question, “What are the options and opportunities available to an aspiring early childhood educator?” let’s understand Rashi’s journey as she navigates to be an early childhood educator.
After completing 12th standard, Rashi looked for a job to support her family. She always enjoyed babysitting her little cousins and wondered if working with children could be a career option for her. She had seen a childcare center next to her pre-university college and enquired about the qualification required to be a teacher at ECE. She went home and looked for the most economical Nursery Teacher Training (NTT) course that she could finish online in 12 weeks. Today, Rashi is a pre-primary educator working at a local pre-school. She wants to pursue a degree in Education through correspondence and is hopeful about growing her career in ECE.
Most pre-schools employ teachers like Rashi. The current ecosystem does not require an early educator to need any qualification beyond 10th and basic spoken English. They learn to perform their roles as teachers while on the job. Most educators in this field rarely get opportunities for professional development or guidance toward career growth in the area. For a motivated early educator like Rashi, there is a need to create an ecosystem that acknowledges the challenges these candidates face and invests in their journey to be better qualified early educators.
From the secondary data, one striking (but not entirely surprising) learning is the need to have common standards across ECE for the quality of training available to our teachers. This, therefore, raises a few questions for open dialogue in the ECE community…how do we ensure quality in ECE? Could we achieve it through quality teacher training, continued professional development, and a career path that excites educators to come and stay in the field? Should we have a common platform for these educators to come together to discuss and learn from accessible training and, above all, each other’s experiences? How does every ECE classroom get the same educator quality regardless of the economic strata the child belongs to? Should there be a governing body that would ensure every ECE classroom educator has the skills needed to deliver developmentally appropriate practices? How do we make sure that quality education is equitable?
As I leave you with many open questions, let me bring you back to the one I started with…are we ready to ‘empower’ our educators? I think we can, and I know we must. Because these early educators are the foundation of the change that our children deserve.
