ABSTRACT
The term ‘early childhood education’ (ECE) is open to wide interpretation. The ‘global early childhood landscape’ (Hayden 2000) is shaped by the social, economic, political, professional and philosophical context of each individual nation’s culture. The term ECE itself embraces much that is the province of childcare services (hence the comparatively recent coining of the word ‘educare’). The form and content of the education available to very young children is varied. In addition, there is no universally recognised consensus on the age-phase to which ‘early childhood’ refers within an individual’s life span. The World Organisation for Early Childhood Education (widely known as OMEP, the Organisation Mondiale pour l’Education Prescolaire/Organizacion Mundial para la Educacion Preescolar) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) define ‘early childhood’ as the period from birth to eight years of age. But, for example, in New Zealand it refers to children from birth to five, in Canada the focus is on the age phase immediately prior to mainstream compulsory schooling (kindergarten) and in the United Kingdom, the main focus of the present government has moved from the education of children of 3–5 years to encompass the period between birth and five years of age.
