Monograph

Malaysia ECCE is still far behind in terms of ECCE educators’ program, educators’ professional development, and career pathway compared to other countries, which resulted in unstandardized care and education for children and high turnover rate among the educators. Therefore, the aims of this study are to develop a framework for quality ECCE educator’s program, identify professional development program for educators, and build a framework for ECCE career pathway. Embarking on the convergent parallel mixed-method, 991 pre-service educators and 3249 in-service educators were surveyed while 140 pre-service educators and 257 in-service educators were interviewed. Data were analyzed by using statistical and thematic analysis. Based on the analysis, quality criteria for ECCE programs were identified for certificate, diploma and degree levels. On a different note, five major educators’ competencies emerged as imperative in producing quality educators. In this study, educators’ professional development can be categorized into education vessel and continuum of proficiency. Regarding the career pathway, this study found that the current organizational structures at CECs which are managed by different agencies in Malaysia consist of various position titles, schemes, and grades. Hence, this study summarized these complexities by classifying the positions based on the roles which are administrators, educators, and assistants. The implication of this study is the existing ECCE in Malaysia has the potential to move forward in delivering quality care and education for children by putting more emphasis on improving the present ECCE educators’ program, educators’ professional development, and career pathway. The study also produced research instruments consisting of interview protocols and survey booklets, 6 modules for the use of teachers and preschool children, 18 Scopus journals and travelogue books and seminar compilation. For future research, a longitudinal study could be conducted to measure the effectiveness of the proposed ECCE educators’ program, professional development and career pathway in an actual setting.