Global Readiness among Preschools Children in Malaysia

Abstract

One of the most important tasks of educationists from preschool centers in Malaysia is to prepare the young child for global readiness. This study involved (N=529) preschool children in Malaysia. The main objective was to gauge the level of global readiness of children aged (5-6 years old) according to several dimensions of global readiness namely (a) diversity and multiculturalism (b) use of ICT (c) communication and multiple language ability (d) problem solving and (e) environmental awareness. Responses to the Global Readiness Scales were recorded and analyzed using One Way ANOVA. The main findings indicated that (a) a generally high level of global readiness in diversity dimension (b) high level of global readiness was found in usage of ICT and problem solving dimension (c) moderate level of global readiness were found on communication and environmental awareness (d) all types of preschool scored high level of global readiness except in Islamic based preschool which scored moderate (e) significance differences were found according to the types of preschools in all dimensions except cause and effect. The findings suggest that (a) there is need to conduct qualitative study on the implementation of global readiness in the preschool centers (b) there is the need to develop global readiness curriculum modules to be integrated effectively in teacher training (c) a cross-cultural comparative study should be conducted across preschools at the regional and international level to gain wider perspective on the implementation of global readiness.