Preschool Education in Malaysia: Emerging Trends and Implications for the Future

摘要

The aim of this study is to identify the history background of private and public preschools, the emerging trends and implications for the future. The establishment of preschool is to provide early child education program for children age 4 to 6 years old. The Malaysian government had listed the standard operating procedure for the preschool operators to comply with the regulations accordingly. Although government provide free charges or less fees compare with private preschool, the trends parents registering their children to the private preschool are emerging. To arrive at these findings and the discussions in this paper, reference was made to papers presented at various sources of journals and by documented policies from Curriculum Development Centre, Ministry of Education Malaysia. The concepts of private and public preschools are viewed by many scholars as the same, in that the main objective of the establishment is an institution providing education services for the early stage of children. Hence, this research intends to conduct a study on the preschool in Malaysia, the emerging trends and the implication for the future. Trends of parents to register their children in the private preschool may identify the factors contributed towards the emerging of private preschool as an alternative or a requirement in our daily life. The implications for the future while investing in early childhood education will benefit individual children and society as a whole.