KUCHING: About 300 participants are expected to participate in the Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association (PECERA) 2018 International Conference which will be held from July 6 to 8, 2018.
Minister of Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah said that this would be the first time that the conference would be hosted in Malaysia particularly in Kuching.
“The conference is very timely with the theme ‘Start Right, Begin the Journey Right’ and relevant to early childhood education in Sarawak,” she added during the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) and HELP University at Hilton Hotel here yesterday.
Fatimah disclosed that the foundation for character building, socialisation, communication, literacy skills, love for learning, love for environment starts with early childhood education.
“In other words, quality human capital begin with Early Childhood Education. Thus, it is very important to start right,” she added.
She pointed out that PECERA 2018 would be an avenue for preschool educators to interact, exchange ideas and gain experience with international counterparts.
“The MoU sigining between the two universities is a good start to a collaboration in Early Childhood Development.
“I hope this will lead UNIMAS to offer degree courses in Early Childhood Education in the near future, hence provide opportunities to SPM or STPM students to pursue this course while for the present practitioner, it’s an opportunity to upgrade themselves,” said Fatimah.
The conference would be jointly organised by UNIMAS and HELP University and it would feature a number of activities including parallel sessions, three or four keynote addresses, workshops and preschool visits within Kuching city on the first day of the conference.
For further information on PECERA 2018 and early bird rates, members of the public may visit the website at http://mypecera2018.com or Facebook at www.facebook.com/pecera2018.
