Professionalization of
ECCE
Vrinda Datta
CECED
Ambedkar University Delhi
Eva L. Essa
Introduction to Early Childhood
Education
Course: ECE Diploma CP4 –
Professional Development of Early
Childhood Educators
Faculty: Aruna Jyothi
Year: October 2023
Learning outcomes
1. Examine existing teacher professional development programmes in
Early Childhood Education (ECE).
2. Describe the content and pedagogy of ECE teacher professional
development programs.
3. Reflect on their own experience as a practitioner with reference to
characterises of a quality ECE teacher.
4. Analyse the issues of ethics and challenges related to ECE teacher
professional development in the Indian content.
5. Plan recommendations for ECE teacher professional development
programs.
3 units – course content
Concept of professional development
• Pre-service
• Inservice
• Qualifications required
• Stages of teacher development
Characteristics of a quality ECE teacher
• Professional standards
• Mothering and teaching
Challenges for teacher professional development
Emerging issues and debates
Ethical code of conduct
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=ByaBh2A5BtU
Is teaching a job
or a profession?
ECE teachers as
professionals
Professional Responses in a Standard Predicament
• Imagine a teacher of a group of 20 4-year-olds in a
setting in which the outdoor equipment includes
only two tricycles. In a group of 4-year-olds in such
a situation, squabbles will inevitably arise
concerning whose turn it is to use one of the
tricycles.
• Specifically, Imagine that a child named Robin goes
to the teacher and protests, saying, “Leslie won’t
let me have a turn!” There are probably scores of
“right” as well as “wrong” ways to respond to this
situation.
• What could be the types of professional judgement
processes a teacher might engage in are presented
below under three interrelated headings:
• What could be taught in this situation
• Clinical questions relating to individuals in the
incident
• Curriculum and management concerns
What could be taught in this
• Social skills: Negotiation, turn taking and
situation? frustration tolerance
• Verbal skills: Assertive phrases,
Conversational phrases (speaking for the
child)
Professional ‘s Response • Social knowledge: social perspective,
rudiments of justice. Observers'
understandings and skills
• Dispositional learning: Empathic and
altruistic dispositions, experimental
disposition, complaining and tattling
______________
Likely to focus on what is happening rather
Non-Professional’s Response than what is being learnt, focus on putting out
the fire, use of distraction, use of phrases like
‘cut it out!, be nice! Don’t be selfish!, issuing of
threats (if you don’t do this you won’t get to go
to the zoo, bribery, time-out, moralize about
the virtues, inquiry into who had it first- who is
to blame etc, comparisons…
• https://www.virtuallabsc
hool.org/preschool/profe
ssionalism/lesson-1
• 2.39min – English
Profession Professionals Non-professionals
Has guidelines and “experienced teacher formulates A semi-profession differs
standards to meet her response rapidly, in a manner from a true profession in
sometimes thought of as intuitive that they have lower
Has a body of
(she processes large amounts of professional status, a
knowledge
concepts, information, and shorter training period, a
Share a code of knowledge at many levels and at lower level of social
ethics as a group great speed) acceptance, a less
Maintain Can make theory practice connect developed body of
objectivity knowledge and skills, and
A professional teacher will think, less autonomy (Saracho &
Has autonomy ‘what can I be teaching?’ in Spodek, 1993). These are
Holds values handling a situation all true of early childhood
education.
Provides service
Regulated by law
“the term profession is used in its general sense to refer to an occupation that is
client or service–centred or bureaucratically organised. Day care and preschool
personnel are not yet fully professionalized,”
Characteristics of the Good Early Childhood Teacher
Respect, patience, and creativity
are some of the characteristics
thought to be important in good
early childhood teachers. (Eva. L.
Essa)
Is also about
• warmth, sensitivity, energy,
sense of humor, flexibility
Moving towards professional identity
Lloyd and Hallet, 2008
Identity mostly comes when we
• Feel more valued
• Gain respect from others
• Develop personal and professional
confidence
• Feel empowerment and have an agency
• Take pride and have a passion for
working with children and families
• Work towards Improved professional
status
Standards
Standards and norms are crucial:
• To promote professionalism in the field
• To promote, reinforce and safeguard
quality services for all young children
• For systematic development of this
field
• The ‘quality standards’ is not a
standalone exercise. It is supported by
an enabling environment, with genesis
of associated National Early Childhood
Care and Education (ECCE) Policy;
National Curriculum Framework for
Early Childhood Education. It would also
require an aligned system of supportive
supervision; teacher education
framework and professional support for
ECCE personnel.
Non negotiables for ECE quality standards
• Duration
• Classroom dimensions
• The building – safe, clean, and
approachability.
• Space should be allocated for cooking
meals and nap time for children
• Water facility - clean potable water
• Separate toilets
• Immediate health service – First Aid/
Medical Kit
• Staff appointments – adequately trained
• Resources – toys and others TLMs to be
developmentally appropriate
• The adult child ratio
Accreditation
• a process by which a recognized community
establishes standards for services.
• programmes apply on a voluntary basis for
evaluation against the standards and, if found to
meet or surpass them, are granted a certificate of
recognition.
• is the evaluation of the quality of the
infrastructure and processes that support ECCE
practices and follows a Continuous Quality
Improvement (CQI) methodology.
• a set of standards have been devised to ensure
that all kinds of ECCE programmes run by public,
private, civil society or any other bodies follows
certain kind of quality.
• Based on these standards, the pre-schools are to
be reviewed and then accredited by a national
body. The focus is to move ahead from just the
minimum standards to continuously strive
towards higher standards.
NCTECECED, Ambedkar University Delhi
Professional
Development
of ECCE
Course: ECE Diploma CP4 – Professional
teachers and Development of Early Childhood Educators
Challenges Faculty: Aruna Jyothi
Year: October 2023
• https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_straus_men_in_early_childhood_educ
ation
• Men in ECE - 11.13 – English with subtitles
• Can watch first 6.07 min
Mothering and teaching
• What are the qualities that
differentiate a mother and teacher?
Qualities required of a mother and a
teacher as each have very distinct
roles to play
• A teacher should not be or can’t afford
to be a mother – your views
• Caring by itself doesn’t become
mothering – your views If you have a child and you go to a
shop and child asks/cries for a
chocolate, what are you going to do?
You may not have intended buying
but now child is asking what will you
do?
Teacher Education
Early childhood teacher education is a patchwork of preservice and
in-service education opportunities and credentials, characterized
by varied state and local requirements across types of programs,
and roles.
Many states permit childcare providers and preschool teachers to
begin to teach without any professional preparation; others have
preservice requirements that range from a week of orientation to
four years of college.
Inservice education is equally diverse, encompassing a variety of
educational opportunities designed to hone professional skills or
update professional knowledge, but it is most often characterized
by poorly designed and uncoordinated workshops and
conferences.
Factors influencing the curriculum and content
• one academic head and 3 teacher educators reported
‘expectations of formal schools’ as an important factor
influencing the design of their curriculum
• “One of the Academic heads shared his dilemma that even
though they are aware that children are not ready to learn
writing at the nursery level, the formal schools expect the
children to ‘know everything’ when they come into the
school in Grade. This compels them to prepare their
trainees accordingly.”
• NCTECECED pg.64
Professional Development
of ECE teachers
• IGNOU – Diploma in ECCE
• NIOS – Certificate in ECCE
• TNOU – Diploma in ECCE
Overall
Early childhood professional preparation
programs should have a strong grounding
in the liberal arts and include professional
course work in the areas of child
development, curriculum, assessment,
diversity, inclusion, and family relations as
recommended by the National Association
for the Education of Young Children (1996).
B.T. Bowman, p. 271, Ch. 7, preparation of early childhood professionals
in Eager to learn: Educating our Preschoolers,
Elements for high quality teacher education
Trainers – role, qualities
Training – aspects, methodologies
Standards – non-negotiables
Accreditation – standards for review, infrastructure, processes, follow set
qualities, comply with requirements, verification, reapply if not meeting the
standards
If these
are the
qualities of
a teacher,
what
should be
the
qualities of
a teacher
educator?
Role of
Trainers/Teacher
Educators/Facilitators
Qualities and Role Good content knowledge Any thoughts?
of a Good Teacher Child development
Educator/facilitator DAP
Policies
ECCE
Maintains good relationship
Demonstrates maturity, confidence, and enthusiasm
Good communicator
Creates a supportive environment
Clearly explains tasks and procedures
Established rapport
Listens actively and sensitively
Is friendly and congenial to all
Includes participants views
Makes it a collaborative exercise
Is a professional
Organized
Plans the program
Can balance multiple responsibilities
Have aims for the programs
Manages time effectively
Adapt a given program to a specific group of
Is skilled at conflict resolution teachers.
Provide post-program support
Teaching learning methods
Group Discussions, Activity
Presentations,
most Brainstorming, Reflection,
common Feedback and evaluation Audio Visual
ANY OTHER?
Role
Self- Lecture method
play
reading – – interactive?
Technology
Need based
Knowledge Contextual-
based – than rather than
rooted in unconnected
conventional to real-life
wisdom situation
Teacher
Education
/Development
Ongoing –
Reflective – than sporadic
than and
prescriptive & disconnected
set of truths Cumulative in in its
its intentions – components
than set of
features that
don’t build
upon one
another
Stages of Teacher
Development
Stages of dev and training needs of teachers of young
children (Katz, L. 1980)
Stage I: Survival
• Duration: 3 months to one year of teaching
• Developmental Tasks:
Teacher’s main concern-whether or not she can survive
• Training needs: Direct help, on-site support
✓Trainers can be senior staff members, advisors, consultants, directors
or program assistants-they should be known to the teacher and shld
know her context
✓Training should be constant
• During this stage the teacher acquires baseline knowledge about
what characteristics of young children and what to expect from them
Stage II: Consolidation
• Duration: Begins at the end of year one
• Developmental Tasks:
Differentiate specific skills and tasks that need to be mastered
Focus on individual children and their problems and problem
situations (could be related to learning, classroom organization and
management, planning, resources etc)
Training needs: onsite training to continue
✓Joint exploration of a problem
✓Trainer helps the teacher reflect and explore alternatives
✓Exposure to psychologists, health professionals, and more
experienced colleagues - provide information and support
During this stage teacher begins to identify patterns of behaviour of
children that does not fit the norm
Stage III: Renewal
• Duration: Begins during the 3rd or 4th year of teaching
• Developmental tasks:
Gain information about new developments in the field
• Training needs:
✓Meet other colleagues from different programs
✓Receptive to experiences in conferences and workshops
✓Membership and participation in professional associations
✓Exposure to magazines, journals, videos
✓Field visits to different programs, classrooms
✓Teacher centres are very valuable for this stage teachers
Stage IV: Maturity
• Duration: 3 to 5 years or more
• Developmental tasks: is confident about own competence
✓Is able to ask more deeper philosophical questions about own
philosophy, value of schooling and education, nature of growth and
learning
✓By this stage has own theories on various aspects
• Training needs: attending conferences and workshops, sharing,
gaining degrees
• Interestingly by this stage lot of teachers move to supervisory
positions
Frances Fuller’s model of teacher
development
• Three stage model of teacher development
• Stage 1) concerns about self
• Stage 2) concerns about tasks
• Stage 3) concerns about students and the impact of teaching
This stages reflect an outward journey. At the same time teachers also
engage in an inward journey they found about personal capacity to
manage their classrooms to concerns about their personal capacity to
grow as a teacher and person, with heightened reflexivity and
attention to development of self-as-teacher
Stages
