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SCIENTIFIC METHODS OF PRE-SCHOOL PEDAGOGICS: THE SYSTEM
OF PRESCHOOL ORGANIZATION IN UZBEKISTAN
Scientific supervisor: Shokhidaxon Moydinova,
Mohklaroyim Adxamova
The student of
Andijan state institute of foreign languages,
414-group – English language and literature
Abstract. The author of the article attempts to analyze the current pre-school
education system of Uzbekistan, its main challenges, shortcomings and reforms.
Moreover, this research will provide the study of the importance of learning at early
ages (3-5) and its impact on the future learning and personal development of children.
The research highlights the analysis of domestic and foreign prospects of the studied
issue. Namely, the researcher presents the view that developed countries pay more and
more attention to boost the quality of pre-school educational institutions, the efficiency
of curriculum, and implementation of more social activities to enhance the
development of children’s soft skills; however, this is not the case in developing
countries such as Uzbekistan.
Thus, the goal of the paper would be to elaborate on the need to consider,
remodel and upgrade the pre-school education system further and trigger to start some
campaigns which will aim to develop young mother’s personal and professional
development. The study will highlight the impact of pre-school education by evaluating
the literature in the field, looking deeper at the experience of developed countries as
well as considering the situation in Uzbekistan regarding the mentioned area. The
findings of the paper can be deployed to prepare educational policy and contribute to
the development of the entire education system of Uzbekistan.
Keywords: pre-school education, early childhood education, ECE, child’s
development, Uzbekistan.
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The current researches on children’s learning and their future performances as
students at higher levels of educational institutions demonstrate the significance of pre-
school education. The studies held in the US and Europe show that children who
practiced some learning process before going to school perform better than others at
primary, secondary schools, and even at universities. Thus, the young generation
should be on focus since early ages of development by their families and government
in order to ensure a bright future for them.
In history, when prominent scientists such as Al-Khwarizmi, Alfraganus,
Farobiy, Beruni, Avicenna, Navoi, Bobur, Mirzo Ulugbek, and others from Central
Asia contributed to the world heritage in such areas as Math, Geography, Astronomy,
Medicine, Music, Linguistics, Philosophy, Ethics, History and others, it was obligatory
to start learning at early ages. Therefore, our ancestors appreciated learning at early
ages and the performance was outstanding.
Nowadays the government of Uzbekistan is trying to raise the level of literacy
and overall quality of education within the country. New high schools and universities,
especially those which were created in co-operation with foreign countries seem to be
in great demand. However, due to the fact that not enough interest, attention, and
importance was made for about 25 years into the pre-school educational institutions,
children on the following levels of education seem to be struggling and the academic
performance of pupils is not satisfactory today. Besides, it should be highlighted that
even though Uzbekistan is the most populated country in Central Asia and the second
populated one in post-Soviet Union countries after Ukraine, the number of
kindergartens is insufficient. Moreover, the educational program at pre-school
educational institutions are quite outdated and need to be reconsidered by the
government.
This article is intended to bring benefit in terms of recognizing the importance
of early childhood education and understanding the value of investing in pre-school
education in developing countries, particularly in Uzbekistan.
The research conducted in the field of neuroscience and brain development at
Harvard University showed that it is crucial to invest in the early childhood
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development in order to maintain prosperous society. Starting from birth to five years
are the most productive for developing cognitive skills and acquiring knowledge. The
stronger the emotional, physical, social skills with cognitive-linguistic ability at early
ages, the more successful the child becomes later at school and even in the workplace.
[1]
Until the 1980s stimulating young children’s development was not very popular
even in the curriculum of developed countries. Preschools in most communities served
as a child caring institutions. However, for the last decades the importance of early
childhood learning and socialization is becoming more actual and this phenomena has
gained more interest especially in European countries, such as Finland, Sweden,
Norway, UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Netherlands and others. These countries
prioritize early childhood development and keep long-term investments. [2]
Earlier studies accomplished in 1964 by Hunt, Deutsch explained that children
at the first years of life have great potential to learn and it is critical for future life and
career. Bloom (1964) also highlighted the periods when children are able to learn fast
and effectively to be the first five years of life. Hunt’s and Bloom’s theoretical writings
stimulated the awareness and development of pre-school education in above mentioned
countries. Later Midness and Keliher (1968) evaluated 47 researchers on the
importance of pre-school education and suggested to include kindergartens into
thepublic education system of the United Kingdom. [3]
Studies accomplished by Myers (1992) described that children who were
exposed to pre-school education are prepared to the environment of school better than
those who were not. They showed better performance in subjects such as English
language, Mathematics and science than their peers who did not have background
experience. Besides, Milbank and Osborn (1987) explored that while children interact
with their friends and get engaged in various activities at kindergartens, they improve
their cognitive skills [4]. At this stage, children are curious, eager to learn everything
around them and theyacquire information promptly. According to the researches,
positive atmosphere is also essential in the growth of a child both mentally and
physically. [2] Therefore, attending pre-schools from early ages can be beneficial to
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overall health of young generation as well. Besides, pupils with earlier experience in
nursery schools do not feel shy and feel much more confident while interacting with
peers or teachers. They feel free to take part in different activities and enjoy the process
due to the fact that they had positive experience in pre-school settings. [5]
Ms. Gopnik (2014) and her colleagues observed that youngsters at the ages of
4-5 were better than grown-ups at recognizing and analyzing the events happening
around them, particularly cause and effect situations. Pre-school children were more
open-minded while analyzing the evidences with improbable and uncommon
associations. However, adults had difficulties compared to youngsters in the evaluation
due to their already established ways of perception. [6] Thus, pre-school education is
useful to expand children’s both soft and hard skills.
On the other hand, not all children have opportunity and access to attend pre-school
settings or acquire knowledge from parents at home. Brophy (2006) explained that
disadvantaged children due to the fact that they have limited access to books,
educational games, toys and cannot have enough experience in visiting educational
places such as museums and zoos, are not well-prepared for the school activities [7].
Poverty or limited access to educational experience and materials impact child
development negatively. An American charity project named “The Opportunity Project
(TOP)” ran a research during the period of 2007-2012 in this area investigating the lon
term benefits of its own early childhood education programs on disadvantaged
children. The Program itself was founded to support children and families in poverty,
provide them necessary educational tools and it applies the curriculum based on the
guidelines of the National Association of the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).
The findings of five-year-long research showed that when children are exposed to early
education, they were still active at school at learning and social activities. Moreover,
engagement of children into learning since early ages is beneficial for their brain
development as well. Besides, these children were displaying more emotionally mature
behavior compared to others. So for at least five years, high-quality pre-school
education brings success in terms of educational achievements, social interactions and
other activities together with emotional stability. [8]
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Another project which explored the impacts of early education in children’s
future achievements is the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE)
project. It is the first European longitudinal study which focused on investigating
young children’s (aged 3-4) development. The project explored the short term and
medium term effect of pre-school education, pre-school characteristics on children and
home learning environment on children’s development. The results of the research
revealed that starting education at young ages plays an important role in reducing social
discriminations; both the quantity and quality of pre-school education are influential;
pre-school has a positive impact over family influences. Other findings explain that in
order to make children more progress, staff/parent should also understand child
development along with curriculum knowledge; children who attended pre-school
compared to “home-school” attenders demonstrated better concentration on subjects,
sociability and other soft skills when they started school; time spent at pre-school
settings do not make any difference, the child who attended full-time and the child who
attended part-time have no big discrepancy in the development; there is a strong
association between children’s performance at school and parental factors;
disadvantages such as socio-economic status, lowincome, mother’s age and level of
education correlate with lower academic performance at school. [9]
The above-mentioned researches well-indicates the importance and role of early
childhood education in the development of children and their future success. At the
same time, acquired cognitive skills lead to a better and higher income, thus economic
growth of the whole country. There is a strong correlation between cognitive skills and
economic growth. [10] Unfortunately, developing countries do not pay enough
attention to the role of child education and cognitive skills compared to developed
countries. Further, the experiences of high-ranked countries based on the best pre-
school education provision will be discussed.
According to the results of Starting well, an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
research program [11], Nordic countries (Finland ranking on top) are taking the first
four top six places on the best preschool provision. Asian countries such as South Korea
(10), Japan (21), Singapore (29), Taiwan (30), Malaysia (36) and Indonesia (44) are
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also included in the list.
It is important to emphasize that Finland ensures quality by developing teaching as a
professional career. Pre-school education teachers must have at least Bachelor’s
degree, while most teachers complete a Master’s degree too. However, in order to work
as a teacher at primary levels, it is mandatory to have a Master’s degree too. Teachers
are respected and paid well in Finland; a class ratio is 11 students per teacher.
The Index used different factors to measure the ranking of countries. The first
aspect was availability of pre-school entities to each family. Belgium comes first and
the data indicates that 99.7%of children attend free pre-school from the age of two and
a half. The next top countries in terms of availability are Norway (98.6%), UK (97.7%),
Sweden (97.5%), Finland (94.9%), while the four bottom listed countries are China
(34.8%), Turkey(33.5%), India (21.8) and Indonesia (11.5). Of course, there are
different factors impacting this aspect of availability which include territory of the
country, population, distance between pre-school facilities and home of children.
Affordability is the next index to measure the best pre-school education. In some
countries such as China and USA the cost of pre-school education is even higher than
universities or colleges. There are certain countries which provide subsidies for
disadvantages families but the cost varies. On the other hand, the countries which
recognized the role of ECE, are making sure that these services are affordable for the
families. For instance, Ireland introduced one year free pre-school education as of
2010. Other examples can be UK and France which provide free pre-school education
from the age of three to all children. However, in UK the number of allowed hours is
15 hours per week while France grants full day programs, but some services such as
lunch or additional childcare hours are charged. Those chargeable services can be paid
with the help of subsidies. The index of affordability not only measures how costly are
the services of pre-school entities, but it also takes into account the system of subsidies
and tax credits for disadvantaged families. The top countries based on this index are
Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.
In order to achieve goals in terms of child development, it is essential to ensure
the quality of education. The factors which influence the quality are student-teacher
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ratio in the groups; training and improving skills of employees; developing curriculum
guidelines; maintaining parents’ awareness and involvement; providing good health
and safety conditions; building collaborations with primary school system; establishing
structured data collection system, and others. These factors were considered while
measuring the index of quality. Finland, Sweden, UK, Norway are on the top, Czech
Republic, Spain, USA, Greece in the middle and Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and
India in the end of the list. New Zealand ranked as the 7th on the list in the current
index, started transformation of childhood education services 35 years ago. The
government developed a mechanism where each children had opportunity to attend
pre-school child care and education settings from birth till the age of five 30 hours a
week.
Moreover, the importance of qualified teachers was recognized and all the
professionals working in pre-schools were retrained at universities. ECE services
receive more funding from the government based on the number of qualified teachers
in the entity.
The research program showed the improvements in the field of early childhood
education and the role of investments in human capital for a better future of society.
Ensuring high-quality education at the early ages which are available and affordable to
the population within the country demands continuing steadfastness from the
government. At the same time, the above-mentioned data can encourage policymakers
of developing countries such as Uzbekistan.
REFERENCES
[1] The science of early childhood development. Center on the developing child,
Harvard
University,
2007.Available
at:
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-science-of-ecd/.
[2]
Starting
well.
Talent&Education.
Economist,
2012.
Available
at:
https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/talent-education/starting-
well#:~:text=At%20its%20core%2C%20the%20Starting,quality%20of%20such%20
preschool%20environments.
[3] Burlacu F. The importance of pre-school education in child development.
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Euromentor Journal - Studies about education, 02 (2013), 153-165.
[4] Taiwo A.A., Tyolo J.B. The effect of pre-school education on academic
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[5] Bibi W., Ali A. The Impact of Pre-school Education on the Academic
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[6] Sparks S.D. Striking a Balance on Early Rigor. Education Week Spotlight on
Critical Thinking, (2015), 2-4.
[7] Brophy J.E. Effective schooling for disadvantaged students. In: Knapp M.S.,
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[8] Bakken L., Brown N., Downing B. Early Childhood Education: The Long-Term
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[9] Sylva K. et al. The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) Project:
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