Early childhood education: Notes from the past for the future

Abstract

Early childhood education has made great progress internationally in the last thirty years, in large measure through the efforts of researchers and practitioners. In contrast, many governments have failed to establish the unified systems of management and administration recognized as essential since the 1970s. Maintaining dual systems, they have not been able to generate and implement a coherent curriculum or unitary training programs for practitioners. As these are achieved, it will be necessary to include in the academic components of practitioner education programs a knowledge base about child development and its facilitation. The theoretical underpinnings and empirical findings supporting this knowledge base were established in the 1960s and 1970s. However, they have been ignored or re-invented as subsequent fashions succeed each other. The central components of this knowledge base are recapitulated.