Early childhood education system in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong Lok Yin Leung, Kristy

(1001 words) Topic: Education

As the idiom goes, Children are our hope of future. And knowledge is always the key element that can change ones life, thus, the importance of giving the best education to youngsters is undeniable. We can all see that both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong government had been working really hard in this aspect. It is known that with the growing awareness of the importance of early childhood education, the government of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom had both increased the resources in investigating a better program of preschool education. (Ho, Campbell-Barr, Leeson, 2010) This essay is focusing on the differences of the curriculum of early childhood education in Great Britain and Hong Kong and discussing whether the program is useful or not.

When it comes to early childhood educations system in Hong Kong, it is known that the scheme was acknowledged to be the foundation for lifelong learning. According to the Education Bureau (2007), the aim of pre-school education in Hong Kong is to allowed children to learn and be educated in a relaxing and enjoyable environment. In addition, to encourage a balanced development in the area of physique, intelligent, language and social skills, emotions control and aesthetics, an all-rounded development of children is the finally goal of the program, in addition to be well-prepared for the primary school education that follow on.

The early childhood education curriculum in the United Kingdom is

quite similar. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1999, cited by Kwon 2002) that was in charged in the scheme stated that, there are six main aspects that the program focused on. Firstly, personal, social and emotional development of children; secondly, communication and language skills; thirdly, mathematical development; fourth, knowledge and understanding of the world; fifth, physical development; and lastly, creative development. Apart form this; play is a vital part of in the English pre-school education curriculum. (Kwon, 2002) British people believed that play is the job of children, and they should learn though self-initiated free play in an exploratory environment but not just sitting in the classroom and listen to what the teacher teach them.

It is clear that both Hong Kong and the United Kingdom share the same belief that the curriculum of early childhood education should included three main aspects, which are knowledge, ability and attitude. However, there are different cores of the curriculum in these two places. As moral education is used to be the core in traditional education system of China, thus it was also valued in the preschool education curriculum in Hong Kong. (Chui, 2009) Furthermore, according to Yuen (2008), academic result and ability are also the focus in the curriculum. Whilst in the United Kingdom, individualism is the main focus of the curriculum. It is believed that the education system is based on individual childrens needs and interest; moreover, British believed in a theory of intrinsic motivation. The

British believe that learning should be active and self-motivated; besides, interactions are also the key, thus in most English preschools, free time, which allowed children to explore and learn, is always given. (Kwon, 2002) It is undeniable that a faultless and allrounded early childhood education curriculum should include both aspects that the two countries focused on, although individualism of children is vitally important, the development of the sense of moral should not be overlooked. Additionally, allowing the children to learn the basic knowledge, which acts as the foundation of the education followed on should also be consider.

Literature shows that the pre-school program brings about various positive effects on the development of skills in differ domains. It can be seen that children enrolled in early childhood education have a better academic achievement in the later education program they involved in, and there are quite a lot of international studies can support this. According to Anderson et al (2003), nine studies using the standardized academic achievement assessments, such as the Woodcock Johnson or California Achievement Test demonstrated a significant increase in the academic performance for children that take part in the preschool education. Moreover, there is no doubt that language skills are one of the most important factors that determine the success of childrens educational. (Becker, 2011) And it is shown that attending the early childhood education program result in a noticeable increase in the range of vocabulary a child can

learn by a quarter of a standard deviation. (Lamy, Barnett, and Jung 2005:8-9, cited by Becker 2011) The findings clearly demonstrated that program participants perform better in language test compared to non-participants.

Yet, the effectiveness of pre-school education system has also been criticized particularly in the Great Britain at the moment. Some of the educators started to wonder, is the system really useful to the children, or is it just a waste of money? Galton (1987) criticized the whole child-centered theory was too ideal, he doubt whether children really have a natural intelligent and are they really keen to learn spontaneously. Some also comment that children could never learn through exploring by themselves, unless they know that are the exploring. (Blenkin and Kelly 1987, cited by Kwon 2002) Nevertheless, it is believed that only with proper support from teachers and parents, which give children guidance whenever they need, they can learn even more than just sit in the classroom and listen to what the teachers taught them.

Although the main core of the curriculum in the early childhood education system in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom are different, it is clear that the aim of the program is the same. Furthermore, the strong evidence shows that the program has beneficial effect to the children, and is surly useful for them to be prepared for the further education. All in all, it is believed that the most important mental and

behavioral patterns of a person is developed in the early childhood stage, and it will be very difficult to change once they have been developed, therefore, it is clear that the pre-school education program is vitally essential in developing a all-rounded person.

References: Anderson, L.M. et al, 2003. The Effectiveness of Early Childhood Development Programs. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 4(3S), pp.32-46. Becker, B., 2011. Social disparities in childrens vocabulary in early childhood. Does pre-school education help to close the gap. The British Journal of Sociology 2011, 62(1), pp.70-74 Chui, L., 2009. Comparison of Early Childhood Education Reform Between the United State and Hong Kong. Hong Kong Teachers Centre Journal, 8, pp.139-145 Education Bureau, 2011. Kindergarten Education in Hong Kong[online]. Hong Kong : The Government of the Hong Kong. Available from: http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx? langno=1&nodeID=916 [Accessed 25 November 2011]. Galton, M., (1987). Change and continuity in the primary school: The research evidence. Oxford Review of Education, 13(1), pp.81-93 Ho, D.,Campbell-Barr, V.,Leeson C., 2010. Quality improvement in early years setting in Hong Kong and England. International Journal of Early Years Education, 18(3), pp.243-258 Kwon, Y.I., 2002. Changing Curriculum for Early Childhood Education in England. Early Childhood Research & Practice [online], 4(2). Available from: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v4n2/kwon.html [Accessed 27 November 2011]. Yuen, G., 2008. Education reform policy and early childhood teacher education in Hong Kong before and after transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997. Early Years, 28(1), pp.23-45.