The Survey On Quality Of Diet Activities In Childcare Institutions

The early childhood education and care(0-3 years)has gained considerable attention in recent years.The Outline of China's National Plan for Medium-and-Long-Term Education Reform and Development(2010-2020)for instance accentuated the importance of building a public service system of early childhood education and care.As the principle institutions for early childhood education and care,childcare institutions play a pivotal role in the governmental request.In the childcare scholarship,researchers have found that childcare is one major service in childcare institutions(e.g.,Yang juhua).Since one important constituent of childcare especially infant care is concerned about diet(e.g.,Huang,zhicheng),it is of paramount importance to investigate the dietary activities in nursing institutions.Nevertheless,the extant literature on infant diet at home and abroad has mainly focused on infant diet nutrition,infant diet behavior and infant diet hygiene of children at the age of 3-6.There is a paucity of research investigating the infant dietary activities(i.e.,children of 0-3 years).Thus,it is necessary for researcher to shift their attention to infant diet.Based on the childcare institution education quality evaluation content analysis of quality childcare institution diet activities,this study focused on the infants aging from 18 to 36 months A childcare institution in Jinan city and investigated the childcare institution of teacher-children ratio,infants and young children diet and teacher-child interactions in diet activities by means of literature review,interviews,field observations,and case analysis methods.The results showed that the teacher-children ratio,infant dietary management and teacher actively respond to children in teacher-child interaction in the actual diet activity were reasonable in the institution,but the teacher-children ratio children experienced in the diet activities was problematic.There was also an insufficient attention to infant-centered interactions in diet activities and a lack of professional responsibility.This study also identified some problems in the childcare institution,such as an inadequate number of professional nutritionists,lack of attention to the details in diet activities.These problems were found to be primarily attributed to four factors: insufficient planning for the post-employment training of infants' nursery teachers,the unreasonable work system of infants' nursery teachers,the lack of supervision over the activities of teachers,and an inadequate attention to home cooperation.To improve the situation,this study accordingly recommends strengthening post-service learning and training of teachers,formulating a reasonable work system for education and protection personnels,strengthening the supervision of teachers' activities,and developing an excellent atmosphere of home andeducational institutions.