"We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to the words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child."

Understanding and enhancing the role of a teacher is one of the fundamentals to facilitate the holistic development of a child. Since Early Childhood Development is a relatively new concept in our local setting, people are generally not aware of its basic components and benefits. Therefore, the responsibility of spreading awareness regarding ECD both in schools and in communities invariably rests with the teacher, who is one of the primary stakeholders in the ECD approach.

ECD demands a different kind of professional development for teachers which enables them to not only present the ideas of ECD successfully to parents and communities but also convince them to integrate ECD approaches in their day-to-day lives. Teacher development for ECD should fundamentally be geared towards enhancing their potential to help children grow and develop into healthy, well-nurtured individuals. The teachers must become change agents within the classrooms as well as beyond schools.

Research suggests that the early years are critical for the development of intelligence, personality and social behavior of a child. A child who develops well during early years will have greater opportunities in life, be more productive and very likely become a better citizen. In contrast to primary school education, which has become largely a public responsibility throughout the world, child care and early education directed towards the healthy development of young children is also essentially the collective responsibility of people and teachers play a key role.

Raising awareness and increasing enrollment are not the only tasks to be achieved by the teachers. Their actual work starts when the child enters in an ECD environment. The teacher has to prepare the enabling environment for the children. According to Jean Piaget’s (1896 – 1980) developmental theories, learning and thinking involves the participation of the learners, “knowledge is not merely transmitted verbally but must be constructed and reconstructed by the learner. For a child to know and construct knowledge of the world the child must act on objects and it is this action which provides knowledge for those objects.” Sigel (1977) said that the mind organizes reality and acts upon it. Children need to explore, to manipulate, to experiment, to question and to search out answers for themselves. Teachers should be able to assess the child’s present cognitive level, their strength and weaknesses and should individualize instructional material accordingly. They should ensure that children have ample opportunities and spaces in the classroom to communicate with one another and exchange ideas and experiences; the teacher here becomes a facilitator of knowledge. He/she becomes a guide to stimulate and motivate the students. The children should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them, learning is much more meaningful if the child is allowed to experiment on her own as opposed to silently absorbing the information being transferred from the teacher. The teacher must also assume the role of a guide, exposing children to different situations, allowing them to experiment and try their creativity whereby enhancing their learning potential.