Awareness of Early Childhood Education among Teachers Working in Pre-Primary Schools

Abstract

The period of a child’s growth and development that is most notable is from 0 to 8 years old. These are the years when all that is learned is laid down. Putting strong foundations in place today will yield big dividends later. Greater learning in the classroom and better educational results have a positive social and economic impact on society. Children who get early childhood education (ECE) have a strong foundation, which increases the effectiveness and productivity of every subsequent educational stage. The goal of the current study was to determine the pre-primary teachers’ level of awareness regarding early childhood education, given their critical position in the field. To determine the level of knowledge of early childhood education (ECE) among teachers employed in pre-primary institutions in Bengaluru city, the study used a survey approach and a custom application. A sample of 106 teachers were drawn through cluster sampling. The study found out that the demographic variables like locality, marital status and teaching experience have no influence on the awareness of ECE among pre-primary teachers. The study found that 10% of teachers have average awareness, 31% have good awareness, 37% have very good awareness and 22% have excellent awareness of ECE. Thus, close to 90% of them are found to have better awareness of ECE. This means that pre-primary teachers are well aware of the nature, learning needs etc. of children and also methodology of teaching and evaluation. In spite of better awareness of ECE found in teachers, the study comes out with few of educational implications in order to regulate and sustain the awareness of ECE among them and also in proper handling of children.