Abstract:

The paper focuses on the issue of education of children from the age of two in kindergartens in the Czech Republic, which is conditioned by a change in the concept of pre-school education and thus responds to current problems of reconciling work and private life of young families in the Czech Republic. The topic of institutional care for children over the age of two has been very much discussed in recent years, and it is expressed by experts not only in the area of pre-school pedagogy, but also in psychology and paediatrics, or it also focuses on legislative attention.

Therefore, through a research survey conducted among pre-school teachers, we tried to find out what pros and cons or benefits and risks perceived by kindergarten teachers when integrating two-year-olds into class groups in kindergartens. The research was carried out in the years 2017 - 2019 on the territory of almost the whole Czech Republic and 854 pre-school teachers participated. As a research method was chosen unstructured questionnaire, mapping the views of individual respondents. From the research carried out, conclusions were drawn in the categories of benefits for the child / family / kindergarten and also the risks for the child / family / kindergarten. In conclusion, recommendations were made on how to eliminate risks in the kindergarten resulting from the inclusion of two-year-olds in class groups and thus help to optimize education these children in kindergartens.

Keywords:

Two-year-old child, kindergarten, Czech Republic, benefits, risks, education.