ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of the English nursery school compared to that of the Kuwait kindergarten and outlines the main strands in the thinking about pre-school education in the two countries. The first public statement of the idea of establishing a school for children of pre-statutory age dates back to 1952 when the then Director of Education, Abdul Aziz Husein, suggested that schools be founded for children under six. At this time many young children of pre-school age attended the first stage of the elementary school called “kindergarten” which accepted children 6-9 years of age. The senior teachers who worked in the new kindergartens in the early fifties, explained that the new schools accepted those children because they were of school age and were not registered at any school. Aware of the risks involved in having co-educational kindergartens, the Department of Education tried to make the new schools as attractive as possible to the parents.
