A Comparative Study Of Preschool Teacher Training Patterns Across The Taiwan Straits

As the foundation of all education, pre-school education plays a keyrole in the future of the country and nation; in the meantime, itsdevelopment is related to the growth of billions of children, as well asthe benefits of millions of families. Since the Congress, the state andlocal government have been developing the pre-school in several aspects,such as policy formulation and financial support. There is no doubt thatthe quality of pre-school teacher determines the development ofpre-school education; meanwhile, it is an inescapable historicresponsibility to the teacher training as well. Therefore, the trainingmode of pre-school teacher could be a vital issue which is worthy offurther discussion and exploration.This dissertation starts with the comparison between similarities anddifferences through the pre-school teacher training models of Taiwan andmainland of China.It summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of each model, andanalyzes problems that the current training model of mainland pre-schoolhas been facing; in addition, through referencing the methods that Taiwan’s practices on specific issues, it helps finding solutions to optimizepre-school teacher training in the mainland of China. As consequences ofthose points, pre-school teacher professional development would bepromoted as an ultimate destination in the mainland of China in the future.Literature research would be utilized as the major method for researchin this paper. It plots the pre-school teacher training mode as a key line,to do a comparative study and analysis between Taiwan and mainland of China,which using Shanghai Normal University (SHNU) and National PingtungUniversity of Education (NPUE) as the representativesAccording to this context of dissertation, it can be divided into three sections:The first chapter describes the historical background of pre-schoolteacher training and development process in the both Taiwan and mainlandof China. Pre-school teacher training of both sides have experienced along period of exploration. Kindergarten development of both Taiwan andthe mainland of China have been sustaining for more than ten decades.Although the two regions have suffered the conversion of different regimes,policy and ideology to play a certain influence on training pre-schoolteachers; no matter on policy and decree, or the culture at theinstitutional level, basic pre-school teacher training systems of bothsides present an similar development, and the minor differences are mainlyin time successively.The second part has compared two representative education models.According to certain principles, I chose Shanghai Normal University asa representative of mainland China preschool teacher education model andNational Pingtung University of Education as a representative ofTaiwan.Concluding from the basis of two universities’trainingprograms,I analyzed in detail about training target,curriculum,practicearrangement and teachers’ qualification. Both of their training targetshave their own focus, and it also reflected in the design of curriculum.The curriculum of mainland China has laid emphasis on macro courses andartistic ability.The curriculum of Taiwan has focused on micro coursesand nursing ability.On the practice arrangement, the mainland arrangementis more compact than Taiwan, and the target is set relatively higher. Onthe teacher qualifications,mainland China has a lot to learn from Taiwanto promote the current preschool education qualifications’normalization.A few related questions about mainland China preschool teachereducation model are mentioned in the third part.By comparing the results,from the view of the mainland China, we can draw lessons from the successful experience of Taiwan to discuss our deficiency.The majorproblems which we can figure out are: Regulations of the mainlandpreschool education still need to be improved; Whether it is to considerart courses as compulsory subjects;The problem How to solve thecontradiction between macro and micro course;The issue how to balancepractice ability and study ability; The way to consummate the teachers’qualification system and the problem how to take advantage of university’s professional strength to normalize the non-professional crew.To compare and explore both Taiwan and mainland of China pre-schooltraining model, it could make benefits to the recent reform and onoptimizing training mode target and course structure of theirselves; itreaches an important theoretical and practical significance ofeffectively enhancing the mainland pre-school teachers specialized ontheir career.