พัฒนาการของการครุศึกษาไทย สาขาการศึกษาปฐมวัยระหว่าง พ.ศ. 2484-พ.ศ. 2536 / กนกรส ชำนาญ = The development of early childhood education programs'in Thai teacher education during B.E. 2484-2536 / Kanokrose Chamnarn
The objective of this research was to study was to study the development of Early Childhood education in Thai teacher education during B.E. 2484-2536. It also covered, many areas of the early childhood education namely the history, the course development and the operation of Thai teacher education institutes. The research data were collected from textbooks and major documents investigation and individual interview. From the result of this research, it was obvious that Thai teacher education in early childhood began officially in B.E. 2484 (after the period of World War II). The government had the policy to expland this level of education nation-wide by providing the scholarships for the teachers who are interested to study abroad, in order to come back and set up and demonstrate the qualified kindergarten school for those private schools to carry on the management in the same pattern. Furthermore, this group of teachers would also set up the teacher's training program in this area for the private school who needed the qualified teachers for their schools. Thus, La-Or-Uthit was the first systematic kindergarten while Suan Dusit was also the first systematic teacher's training institute in childhood education of the country. At first, the course studies were only one-year program. The student would receive teaching certificate and be able to teach in kindergarten school. In B.E. 2500, the program extended to two years program with certificate of higher level. In B.E. 2516, Childhood Education was elevated up to university level. Faculty of Education Chulalongkorn University was the first educational institute that provided Bachelor Degree in Childhood Education. And Sri Nakarinvirod University was the first institute that provided the Graduate program for those who needed further study. Currently there are many programs of Teacher Education in Early Childhood from Diploma up to master degree. [The Doctorate program is on the way.] According to the curriculum, the structure of courses was not changed much only from subject area to unit area and the evaluation marks had changed from percentage [50% pass] to grading system [A-F]. Since Thailand does not have any experts in early childhood education, the shortage of human resources is the major problem at the beginning stage. Thai government solved this problem by sending Thai teachers to study abroad. The other constraint is the limited of budget. However, as a team, the teachers could solve this problem by their own. They could earn extra money by selling their homemade handicrafts, training other people and earn training fee. At the present time, we can reduce the problem of human resource shortage because Thai government pays more attention to early childhood education. Furthermore, experts who were graduated from aboard had setup many kindergarten schools and more trained teachers were available in early childhood education.