A Vision for High Quality Early Childhood Education and Care

This chapter reports on the complexities of making early childhood teaching effective. The motivation to be an early childhood teacher often lies with love of children, and to provide quality early childhood education and care. Early childhood teachers have a significant impact upon children’s learning and development, not only during childhood but throughout their lives. Further, children’s experience of quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) benefits the public good by improving productivity. Investing in early childhood initial teacher education therefore benefits society. Teachers are often unprepared for the physical, social and emotional complexity of the work. Research shows that early childhood teachers experience unexpected issues and challenges amidst the rewards of teaching children aged birth to five years. This chapter presents information on the structures of early childhood teacher education programs, the diversity of which has implications for teacher preparedness. Then details of a small case study of early childhood teacher graduates’ perspectives on their experience of their study for their teaching. The findings highlight potential improvement for early childhood teacher programs. As Australia is experiencing significant shortages of early childhood teachers, more needs to be done to ensure early childhood teacher graduates effectively implement practice for high-quality ECEC programs.This chapter reports on the complexities of making early childhood teaching effective. The motivation to be an early childhood teacher often lies with love of children, and to provide quality early childhood education and care. Early childhood teachers have a significant impact upon children’s learning and development, not only during childhood but throughout their lives. Further, children’s experience of quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) benefits the public good by improving productivity. Investing in early childhood initial teacher education therefore benefits society. Teachers are often unprepared for the physical, social and emotional complexity of the work. Research shows that early childhood teachers experience unexpected issues and challenges amidst the rewards of teaching children aged birth to five years. This chapter presents information on the structures of early childhood teacher education programs, the diversity of which has implications for teacher preparedness. Then details of a small case study of early childhood teacher graduates’ perspectives on their experience of their study for their teaching. The findings highlight potential improvement for early childhood teacher programs. As Australia is experiencing significant shortages of early childhood teachers, more needs to be done to ensure early childhood teacher graduates effectively implement practice for high-quality ECEC programs.