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the Plunket program played a major part in achieving for New Zealand the
world's lowest infant death rate.
An even more thorough program has been piloted and
researched by New Zealand's Pacific Foundation.36 Early in the
1990s the foundation designed and built a combined preschool and parent-training center at
Kelvin Road School, Papakura, in the heart of an area with major deprivation problems. The
center also links in closely with most other district health and social services. The
preschool center also provides a full HIPPY-based development program for infants and
their parents. Foundation executive director Lesley Max describes the total project as a
"one-stop shopping center for parent and preschool services".37
Results have been so outstanding that the government is now financing similar centers in
other parts of the country.
Again in innovative New Zealand, a parents' cooperative
Playcenter movement has been operating since 1941. It was started as a project to provide
support for mothers whose husbands were away at the war. The women would take turns
looking after a group of children to free the others for shopping or recreation. The
movement quickly spread, and one of the early pioneers, Gwen Somerset, organized wider
programs to train the young mothers in child development skills. Today there are 600
playcenters throughout the country, catering to 23,000 children. And parent involvement is
the key. They take turns in helping a trained, part-time supervisor run each center. And
their own training helps make them more competent parents.
Sweden is another country with highly advanced early
childhood development programs - but with a tax-rate that most countries might find too
high. For every child born in Sweden, one parent can have a year off work on almost full
pay to be a full-time parent.38
Later, Sweden offers excellent preschool development
centers. It also has one of the world's best refugee-support programs, with migrants from
114 different countries. By law, each preschool center must employ adults who can speak
both Swedish and the native language of each child. And generally they speak English as
well.
But the prize for excellence in early childhood
education could well go to aspects of a movement that was started over 90 years ago by
Italy's first woman medical doctor, Maria Montessori.39
Most Montessori preschools are private, and often have
high fees. But at French Camp near Stockton, California - an hour's drive from San
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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