By
Lecturer in Arts and early years education, The University of QueenslandA recent surge in private companies offering “skill and drill” school-readiness programs has been likened to “kindy boot camps” by the media.
These programs typically run for one hour a week (with fees in the range of A$40 an hour) for small groups of around five children aged between two and five.
The programs are often housed within companies that also offer tutoring to school-age children. They are not regulated or accredited, as child care, preschool and kindergarten full-time programs are.
Parents with disposable incomes seem to be seeking out these add-on programs to ease their anxieties about their child’s future academic achievement and competitive entry into elite schools.
Flaws in these programs
These school-readiness programs generally have four main flaws.
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Run by untrained teachers
Commercial school-readiness programs are largely run by people without early childhood teaching qualifications. Because they are not regulated, there are no qualification requirements.
There is no guarantee that the program will be delivered by someone who is a qualified teacher or has any training. They may just have had some training in their scripted program.
Some programs are facilitated by primary-trained teachers. However, such degrees are largely based on curriculum content, whereas early childhood qualifications specialise in the nuanced development, pedagogy, curricula, environments and relationships of early childhood to provide customised educational programs to meet individual children’s needs.
Attending a commercial school-readiness program is effectively like having someone with a first-aid certificate (granted they have had some training in the prescriptive program) treat your child’s long-term health-care needs instead of a doctor.
Top Comments
The algorithm representing 'what do you think' is defective. As the third person voting, I somehow stole 25% from the 'angry' icon. leaving 50% 'sad'. And representing, with three votes that 25% think 'lol'; 50% 'sad' and 25% 'angry'. When, really, it is 33% each.
This stuff always annoys me. I didn't send my son to pre-school and, if Prep had been in place at that time, I would've broken the law and refused to him there too. He started school in grade 1. I taught him to read and add up before then, and he's kicking goals now in grade 10 - and always has. It's sad that we can't just let kids be kids. We create this bloody restrictive system (and society) and then we keep making the kids have to fit into it. It makes me sad for them.