Une Ecole Enfantine: Pourquoi? (A School for Infants: Why?).

In 1992, a set of objectives for preschool education in the French-speaking cantons in Switzerland was adopted by the heads of the departments of public instruction in French-speaking Switzerland as well as in Tessin (a non-French-speaking canton in Switzerland). This document was prepared to facilitate the use of these objectives within an inter-cantonal perspective. Part 1 provides a brief history of the development of the objectives beginning in 1972, when a subcommission on nursery school education affirmed the social objectives of preschool education. Part 2 explains the process used to redefine the objectives for preschool education in French-speaking Switzerland in 1991 and 1992. Part 3 presents the ideas governing the new objectives, focusing on: (1) the role of preschools in socializing and educating children, complementing the education that takes in the family, and providing a place of transition between the familial and scholastic environments; (2) the role of nursery school as a place where children learn to become students and blossom; (3) the role of teachers; and (4) the ability of particular activities to develop particular skills. Part 4 focuses on the instructional component of the objectives, covering classroom changes, activities, the child in the classroom, the role of play, perceptual training, and education in its broadest sense. Finally, part 5 argues that the new objectives merely provide a framework which must be filled in by practice. (AC)