Improve accessibility to professional accreditation for teachers - Expert

Improving accessibility to professional early childhood education accreditation for teachers will accelerate Malaysia's aspirations to provide quality childhood education to all.

World Bank Senior Education Specialist Dr Aija Maarit Rinkinen said professional accreditation is important to ensure the teachers are equipped with the right knowledge to teach children at a young age.

"We may think it is enough for an adult to spend time and look after the children but that is not the case.

"If we believe early education is important, then we also need to understand that there are specific skills needed from teacher to be able to support the learning of children, four and five-year-old children,"

She added that this is because the preschool pedagogy is very different from school pedagogy.

"It is because the early childhood education is a specialised field on its own.

"So, while one might say that it's enough for you to have some kind of diploma from some field, but it is not the case.

"You need to have the diploma from early childhood education and preschool education, so you know what to do in the classroom," explained Rinkinen during an interview with Astro AWANI's Consider This tonight.

She is being interviewed following the "Shaping First Steps" report produced by the World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE) combines insights from a comprehensive review of Malaysia's preschool education landscape.