HKIER

Abstract

This paper seeks to present facts and research findings around the world in order to show that preschool education is not only "important" but also "essential". For a long time in Hong Kong, advocates of preschool education have been confronted by the perennial question of the "essentialness" of preschool education. The Government of Hong Kong has been using this professed doubt in avoiding issues of subsidization of the preschool sector. It has been argued that, in the absence of large-scale, empirical, and longitudinal research, preschool education, though considered as important, may not warrant full-scale support from the public purse. By summoning research findings of international significance and through a depiction of reform initiatives in neighboring societies, this paper argues that, as one of the world's most important metropolises and industrialized societies, Hong Kong should quickly realize its own fallacies and shortcomings in the ways it educates its very young and humbly learn from the accomplishments of other societies in the field of preschool education.

摘要

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