Abstract:

Curriculum leadership is a commonly discussed issue on different educational stages. And it has been proved to be helpful for promoting the quality of school curriculum and the results of students’ learning. But in Taiwan, most preschools are still in the beginning on curriculum leadership. They lack stable systems and the outcomes. Due to the low birth rate, the pressure of recruiting students is high. Most preschools focus their characteristics on the equipment, buildings and the environment. Curriculum leadership has been neglected because it takes a longer period of time to show the result. In addition, the organization of a preschool itself, which is small and short of professional leaders, has led to their ignorance on curriculum leadership. Some preschools emphasize on man leadership too much. That is also not good for a sound curriculum leadership system and has bad influences on the curriculum’s quality. Therefore, curriculum leadership of preschools in Taiwan should get higher attention than before.

Meanwhile preschools in Taiwan are facing the curriculum reform. Ministry of Education started temporary “Early Childhood Education and Care Curriculum Framework” in October, 2012. And formal edition has been bringing into practice since December, 2016. For the past five years, many preschools changed the way and habit of curriculum planning. They adopted “Early Childhood Education and Care Curriculum Framework” to plan curriculum and also inspected the contents, but the results among the preschools are quite different. According to many researches of Taiwan’s curriculum framework’s practicing, preschool educator’s needs on the teaching scenes couldn’t be fully satisfied, even though the government or some teacher’s learning centers held many seminars or workshops. The preschool itself must provide stable systems both in curriculum plan and teachers’ professional developments to help them face the curriculum reform. Besides, researches also suggested that if a preschool has a better and stabler curriculum leadership system, the results of carrying out curriculum framework are better, such as the teachers’ educational concepts are more correct, the quality of curriculum is higher and teachers’ performances are more professional.

The aim of this study was to discover the strategies of curriculum leadership for preschools while facing the curriculum reform and to find out what conditions and resources are required. This study contained three aspects: First, what’s the influence of curriculum reform for preschools? Second, what are the strategies of curriculum leadership under the curriculum reform? Third, what are the conditions and resources required to carry out curriculum leadership? This study described the current situation of preschools curriculum leadership and curriculum reform in Taiwan. The content also consisted of six interviews with preschool directors on how they put curriculum leadership into practice and how it worked. Through the survey of actual situation about preschools’ curriculum leadership, the study will help understand the strategies of curriculum leadership under the curriculum reform has been done and what resources are required. In addition, this study will provide helpful information for improving the effects of Early Childhood Education and Care Curriculum Framework, as well as promote preschools’ curriculum quality and school characteristics.

Keywords:

Curriculum leadership, curriculum reform, Early Childhood Education and Care Curriculum Framework, preschool.