Learning to Develop as Early Childhood Professionals

Abstract

The pressure towards increasing professionalism on the part of those practitioners who care for and educate young children has grown considerably over the past decade (Rodd, 1994). The need for improvements in the quality of early childhood service provision has been recognised by growing numbers of early childhood carers and teachers, many of whom already put a great deal of time and effort into their programs and services. In addition, the past decade has witnessed a broadening of the number of roles and responsibilities that early childhood professionals undertake in relation to the changing needs of young children and their families. It seems that the goal of ‘developing and implementing good practice’ which has motivated and underpinned the work of many early childhood practitioners has been achieved to a large extent.