The scope of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Malaysia encompasses both formal and informal education and care of the child from birth to six years old. Quality early childhood care and education necessitates quality early childhood educators who, in turn, need to have quality training in early child care and education. For early childhood educators to be competent, they have to acquire certain fundamental knowledge and competencies. As the first five years are the formative years, Certificate, Diploma, Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, PhD and Ed.D in ECE have to have quality standards to be recognised as professional programmes.

To produce quality early childhood educators, the PS: ECE has identified the core knowledge and competencies of professional, competent early childhood educators in five core knowledge areas.
They are:

1. Child Development
2. Curriculum and Learning Environment
3. Administration and Management
4. Families and the Community
5. Professional Development

Graduates with a Certificate, Diploma or Bachelor’s degree in ECE may teach in preschools or child care centres. However, all preschools under the Ministry of Education Malaysia require their teachers to have a Bachelor’s Degree in ECE as their minimum qualification to ensure quality and professionalism in early childhood education. Early childhood educators in the private sector are encouraged by the government to have a Diploma in ECE as a minimum academic qualification. Owing to competition, quality preschools and child care centres are increasingly employing graduates with Bachelor’s degree in ECE.

The Programme Standards provide an inventory of content, delivery and assessment of programmes, thus enabling identification of vital components of qualifications from Certificate to Doctoral awards. Statements within the Programme Standards should be viewed as benchmark statements, therefore, HEPs are encouraged to go beyond the basic minimum.