ABSTRACT
Australia is a vast and harsh land, semi-desert for much of the interior and with a heavily urbanized population around the Eastern coastline. The geography and population spread, with some young children living in very isolated settlements, has influenced the way in which early childhood education services have developed and are delivered in Australia. Distance education programs, mobile kindergartens, radio, television, and, more recently, satellite-assisted programs supplement the urban center-based provisions for children under five years of age. Despite the communication difficulties inherent in Australia's geographic isolation from Europe and North America, Australians of the nineteenth century were familiar with events in the northern hemisphere. By the end of the 1960s early childhood education began to assume a higher profile. In 1968, a special issue of the Quarterly Review of Australian Education, published by the Australian Council for Educational Research, was devoted to current trends in preschool education.
