Amita Gupta

This book explores issues in early childhood education and teacher preparation in five Asian countries: India, Singapore, China, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. It highlights the diverse classroom pedagogies at work in these twenty-first-century Asian classrooms, reflecting influences that are simultaneously indigenous and colonial, local and global, and considers the challenges educators face when they are expected to reconcile different and sometimes conflicting cultural and pedagogical worldviews. Through a research-driven analysis of key issues such as recent revisions to national early childhood education policies, perceptions on "play-based and child-centered" pedagogy, curriculum and learning materials, and an emphasis on the teaching of values, this book illuminates the diversity of the observed classrooms as well as current trends in early childhood education in parts of Asia.