SEGi College ECPA Scheme For Better Early Childhood Professionals

Together for better early childhood educators! The representatives of the 6 pioneer kindergartens and preschools in collaboration with SEGi witnessed by YB Datin Paduka.

23rd November 2006 SEGi College is introducing a new scheme, named Early Childhood Professional Apprenticeship (ECPA) Scheme, which not only benefits individuals who enjoy working with children but enable early childhood operators to recruit and maintain good workforce. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, YB Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun, launched the ECPA Scheme. “The ECPA programme is designed to assist young adults who aspire to work in the early childhood industry and wish to pursue a qualification in early childhood education. Short listed candidates for ECPA Scheme will be required to undergo full time training,” said Lydia Foong, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at SEGi College Subang Jaya. When asked about the reason of setting up ECPA, Foong explained “This scheme is specially formulate to stimulate interest in early childhood and in a way, we want to help early childhood operators to reduce the high turn over rate.”

YB Datin Paduka Chew was all praise of the endeavour by SEGi and the sponsors. “The ECPA Scheme is in line with the government's effort to improve and upgrade the quality of pre-school educators as a result of the demand and the mushrooming of kindergartens and childcare centres in communities.”

“There is an old Chinese saying that says a person's character is set when he or she is three years old. I mention this adage to bring to everyone's attention that when we send our children to a kindergarten, the quality of service delivered by the kindergarten, the type of teaching that our children will learn and retain, and are greatly influenced by these teachers. Thus, we can see for ourselves the importance of ensuring that there exists a need to constantly improve the quality of pre-school instructors,” said YB Datin Paduka Chew.

To spearhead the ECPA scheme, six kindergarten and early childhood operators have signed up as sponsors. The six are Seri Mawar Child Care and Development Centre, The Children's House, St. Nicholas Montessori Centre, Peter and Jane Kindergarten, Tadika Diyana, and Tadika Eduland Sdn Bhd.

Benefits that sponsors enjoy for ECPA scheme will enjoy cost saving of recruitment advertisements. Not only that, it saves time and resources in looking for the right candidates who are passionate about early childhood education. And sponsors can enjoy cost saving of training and development as the candidates will be trained by SEGi College .

“The training that we provide for our apprentice includes subjects in Foundations in early childhood education, Psychology of Young Children, Communication Skills, Observations and Assessment of Young Children, Health, Safety and Nutrition, Young Children with Special Needs and so on,” said Foong.

On-the-job training with the sponsor covers the practical aspect of early childhood care and education. The apprentice will acquire the skills, training objectives or competencies to be learned on the job.

“The sponsor of an apprentice guides the training and charts the progress of the apprentice in the respective training objectives. This progress should be in line with the skills established by industry that are essential for being a skilled early childhood educator,” added Foong.

According to Foong, an early childhood educator apprentice is a person who provides a physically safe, mentally healthy and intellectually stimulating environment for groups of infants, toddlers and preschoolers. One should observe and interpret children's developmental levels and reactions to situations.

Besides, one should know how to implement flexible curriculum which will meet the needs of each individual child in the group. Positive communication skills are required when it comes to communicating with parents, children and other adults in the preschool and community.

“For those who are interested in applying to be one of the apprentices, they need to make appointment for interview. There will be two interviews whereby the first interview will be conducted by the education consultant, if the candidates went through the first interview successfully, they will be sent to me for the second interview. The third interview will be conducted by the sponsors,” said Foong.

The ECPA Scheme are for selected early childhood programmes under SEGi College . The recipient of the sponsorship may opt to do the Diploma in Early Childhood Education or the International Diploma in Montessori Pedagogy. The programmes are recognised by the Ministry of Higher Education.

Upon completion of the Diploma, students have the option to articulate into the Bachelor of Early Childhood from the University of Southern Queensland , Australia .