Evaluation on quality learning environment of an Islamic-based child care and education centre

Abstract

Quality learning environment of early childhood setting has long been debated and discussed, foreseeing the impact on children’s physical, cognitive, emotional and social outcomes. The widespread usage of global quality measures such as the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale–Revised (ECERS-R) has led to a new perspective of assessing the quality. Therefore, this paper focuses on an evaluation on quality learning environment of an Islamic-based child care and education centre using four subscales of ECERS-R, namely space and furnishings, personal care routines, language reasoning and programme structure. The findings indicate that the daily planning and implementation of activities do reflect the quality. To a certain extent, by using ECERS-R as a reference, it was noted that the subscales of language reasoning and programme structure are closely followed, even though there is a gap in terms of some items in space and furnishings and personal care routines. In addition, there are significant practices exclusively practised by the centre with the aim of inculcating religious values among the children. This preliminary study adds to the small but growing literatures on Islamic-based early child care and education centre in Malaysia.