ECEs
as Professionals

What does it mean to be a professional in early childhood education?

ECE practitioners are passionate and creative professionals in the field of early childhood education and human development. Reflective practice and ongoing learning are cornerstones of ECE professional development, and there are many career pathways through early childhood education as a field. ECEs support each others’ career development through peer mentorship and communities of practice.

In Atlantic Canada, just under 10,000 early childhood educators provide care and learning services for more than 60,000 children. The vast majority of ECE professions in Canada are women, and the same is true in Atlantic Canada. A decade ago fewer ECEs working in Atlantic Canada had newcomer backgrounds, and on the whole the Atlantic provinces had less racial and cultural diversity represented among the ECE workforce compared to the national average. However, these trends are changing as overall regional demographics shift and the ECE workforce adapts and grows.

Early learning and care

Systemic challenges, resourceful ECEs

Developing an ECE practice

ECEs as professional learners

What does it mean to be an Early Childhood Education Professional?

Atlantic Canada ECEs share their perspectives on what it means to be a professional in early learning and childcare.

ECEs provide a valuable service to society. ECEs’ practice varies widely depending on whether they work in a childcare centre or as an in-home provider, and the ages of the children they care for.

The first three years of life are extremely important for human development, the research is there. We’re not just babysitters, we’re educators. We’re working with language development, we’re working with physical development in the very early stages and we’re working with cognitive development. So we’re setting it up for the educators, so that helps them when they go into the school system. It’s very, very important what we do. And I think it needs to be seen.

My two favourite groups are infants and school agers. I equally love them both because they’re so drastically different, but they’re so incredibly similar. When you’re working with babies, children are doing things for the very first time. They’re learning to walk, they’re learning to try new foods.

I think that sometimes it’s easier to run big centres because you’ve got more staff to draw on. But I think the work environment in the smaller centres tends to be better.

High-quality early learning and care is the aim, regardless of the specific conditions in which ECEs practice. Across the region, ECEs agree that high quality learning and care relies on ECEs.

Overall, the quality of childhood education is linked to:

The quality of ECE practice and

Wellbeing of staff, which influences their capacity to excel in their work.

High quality early childhood education and childcare essentially values its children and staff equally.

It’s a number of things. You really need to have staff that are trained in child development. You need to have staff who are patient, kind and understanding. You need to have a director that supports you and decisions that you may make through the day when it comes to children and development or behaviour, social and emotional stuff… Setting up the environment for that, for them to learn, is a big part of that high quality… And families, having a relationship with families is a big thing.