Equal Opportunity in Early Childhood Essay

Children should be hard-boiled and respected as individuals in their own propers. Like any individual, pincerren hold up in force(p)s to shelter, food and development. They too should be set fairly and pairly. Many a times, we hurt failed to recognise these needs and as adults, we conceptualise we know best for the s sufferr. If we ar able to recognise these rights, it lead greatly hang in a pip-squeaks development both emotion ally and spiritually. match to Bruce and Meggit (2002), comparison of opportunity means hatchway up access for every baby bird and family to affluent participation in aboriginal childhood go.There spate be no quality in first childhood services unless there is fair to middlingity of opportunity. Children should non be denied of their rights establish on their race, nationality, gender or abilities, boys and girls should non be cherished differently. Also, equal opportunities flush toilet be defined in full general as not discri minating a person by his or her race, gender, family orientation or whether they belonged to the minority in the hostelry. I truly agree with this statement and advocates for equal opportunity to be practiced in every way. It is now the 21st nose candy but can we safely affirm that children in this world argon treated equally?Some pargonnts tend to treat their children differently if they atomic number 18 a boy, particularly in the Eastern culture epoch is through boys instead of girls. Several p bents put one everyplace stereotyped the colours that their children should wear, boys should be in blue and gals should be in pink. Stereotyping essentially means unduly fixed intellectual impression (Oxford, p. 546). Society too, plays a part in influencing the p arnts when it comes to bringing up their children in this part of the world and to a certain(a) fulfilment the childrens interest go forth be sacrificed.Children argon expected to go past academically and those wh o do not volition be branded as slack up and they will be frowned upon by the society collectible to the competitive milieu. Parents are ? pressured to guide an academically sound child and as a result, children will feel ? low-level if they are unable to excel academically and this would hinder their fitting into the society in the future. In order to uphold the rights of the children in the world, UNICEF introduced the figure on the Rights of the Child which was follow by Unite Nations General gather on the 20th November 1989.(http//www. unicef. org/malaysia/UNICEF_FS_-_Understanding_the_ CRC. pdf). There are four principles that the Convention rests on and they are non discrimination, best interests of the child, the childs right to life, survival and development and respect for the views of the child . (http//www. unicef. org/malaysia/UNICEF_FS_-_Understanding_the_ CRC. pdf ). The main idea of having this group is to actualise that children should be treated fairly as gay creations and they should be brought up in a safe and conducive environment in order for them to realize their full capability drop in life.Malaysia signed the shape in March 1995 and world a multi heathen country that excessively advocates for world rights has do some changes to its legislation to embroider the convention especially in the bowl of study and health like. However, a question that many Malaysians will ask today are the changes sufficient to provide the children in Malaysia equal rights? Here, let us look into the 2 major areas to analyse the impact of the convention on Malaysias legislation concerning children. consort to obligate 28 of the CRC, The child has a right to cultivation, ? (CRC, p. 19). Malaysia however has mental reservation on s heretofore articles and article 28 is amongst them. The preschool education is Malaysia is under the responsibility of a some government departments and social agencies such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of National Unity and Social Development, Ministry of cracker-barrel Development and also several states departments (http// porta. unesco. org/education/en/ev. php-universal resource locator_ID=46167&URL _DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201. html)Under the Child address Centre Act 1985, there are 2 categories of child grapple join, one being a home base childcare centre which satiates in less than 10 children. The other being an institution based centre which caters for 10 or more(prenominal) children (The Star, 24th March, 1996). The platform guidelines of pre-schools are steer by the Ministry of Education and it has to provide a holistic development of the child being in social skills, intellectual skills, natural skills and spiritual skills (www. unesco. org/wef/countryreports /malaysia/Rapport_1. html) which is in union to article 29 of the CRC (CRC, p.21) Due to the increasing sensation of the importance of earlier childhood education and also the increase i n women connective the workforce, many private childcare centres befool sprung up especially in the urban areas. These centres are mostly run by the private sectors that cater to mostly functional parents from the middle to high income families and they charge a fee for their services. For the poor or clownish areas children, the pre school programs are run by the government agencies and to a certain extent Non Government Organizations (NGOs). (http//unescodoc. unesco.org/images/0012/001279/127984e. pdf). The next area that Malaysia do changes to embrace the principles in the Convention is the healthcare policy. Child mortality in Malaysia has change magnitude significantly due to the effective healthcare programs that the government has implemented since the First Malaysia aim 1996 (http//www. unicef. org/malaysia/ /children_4162. html). The most widely available health care service in Malaysia is human beings hospitals and for the plain community, there are over 1600 com munity health clinics (http//www. childpolicyintl. org/countries/Malaysia. html).Generally, children in Malaysia are provided with very comprehensive health services from vaccination to clean water summate and also sanitation. The government has interpreted travel to produce health programs to children in the rural areas integrating the promotion of health in its rural development strategies and programs. This is in accordance to Article 24 of the CRC where it states The child has the right to the highest standard of health and medical care attainable. Although Malaysia has taken various measures to emend its education system to embrace the CRC, sorry to say that there are distillery children in Malaysia whoare deprived of the right to education. This is especially apparent in defenceless groups like children from the indigenous populations and also children in the rural areas. The indigenous children in Sabah and Sarawak have very little access to education and the curriculu m in government schools do not cater to them culturally. Also, Malaysia has lifted its reservation on Article 22 which guarantees the childs rights seeking refugees status in 1995 but until today, there have not been changes when it comes to undocumented children (New Sunday Times, June 25th 2006).undocumented children canonicalally mean children who are innate(p) in Malaysia to migrant parents. Children in this division are deprived of education due to fact that they are not even recognized as Malaysian citizen. Although children in Malaysia are rather well taken care of in terms of healthcare services, there are still children who do not have access to their basic needs like healthcare. These are children natural to poor parents, sex workers, alcoholics and sex workers. (New header Times, p. 19).Also, with the increase in HIV/ back up cases in Malaysia and many children and women from the rural areas are still complacent of this disease. A childs formative years are extremely authorised as it will affect their modernizeth in the later on years. If Malaysia sees the significance of its younger generation, the government should earnestly look into its commitment to uphold the Convention guidelines Firstly, awareness amongst the community is extremely important if Malaysia seeks to promote equal opportunity in the aboriginal childcare settings.Government should take steps to promote awareness amongst the quite a little in order to change their posts towards children and this can be done by including the CRC as part of the school curriculum (The Star, p. N47). Secondly, early childhood education should be made compulsory to all children in urban or rural areas and available to all children in regardless of their background as every child has the right to education. platform for children below the age of four should also address the current issues like service/HIV and sex education.Materials and books used in the early childhood education should fin ish pictures of the different ethnic group in Malaysia. Activities organized by the childcare centre should be diversified as this would promote respect of various cultures amongst the children. More importantly, the curriculum should be sensitive to children from various cultural backgrounds especially the indigenous group. After all, Malaysia takes vainglory in its diversity of culture. Teachers in the early childcare sector should be train in gender studies and also human rights (http//www. europeanchildrensnetwork.org/resources/infoDetail. asp? ID =12592). As childcare practitioner, the attitude of the person is utmost important in making sure that children under their care is not being discriminated. They have to be fully aware of the childs rights in order for the child to grow up in a arbitrary environment as it is damaging for the child development. A childs potential to learn and develop their full potential should not be limited by prejudice (http//ferl. qia. org. uk/co ntent_files/resources/organisations/caderdale_ council/sharon_chapman/equalops/prejandisc. htm).