Published Paper Details:

The period from birth to eight years of age is defined as Early childhood. Early child development encompasses physical, socio-emotional, cognitive and motor development between 0-8 years of age. The early years are critical, because this is the period in life when the brain develops most rapidly and has a high capacity for change, and the foundation is laid for health and wellbeing throughout life. Nurturing care is provided in a stable environment, that is sensitive to children's health and nutritional needs, with protection from threats, opportunities for early learning, and interactions that are responsive, emotionally supportive and developmentally stimulating is at the heart of children's potential to develop. Children who get early childhood education (ECE) have a strong foundation, which increases the effectiveness and productivity of every subsequent educational stage. The goal of the current study was to determine the pre-primary teachers' level of awareness regarding early childhood education. To determine the level of knowledge of early childhood education (ECE) among educators in preschools in Shivamogga city, the study used a survey approach and a custom application. A sample of 110 teachers were drawn through cluster sampling. The study found out that the demographic variables like locality, marital status and teaching experience have no influence on the awareness of ECE among pre-primary teachers. The study found that 11% of teachers have average awareness, 32% have good awareness, 38% have very good awareness and 23% have excellent awareness of ECE. Thus, close to 90% of them are found to have better awareness of ECE. This implies that pre primary teachers are well aware of the nature, learning needs etc. of children and also methodology of teaching and evaluation. In spite of better awareness of ECE found in teachers, the study comes out with few of educational implications in order to regulate and sustain the awareness of ECE among the educators few educational implications inculcated in proper handling of children.