Early Childhood Education Program (Consecutive Diploma/GBC Degree)(C148) at George Brown College

Early Childhood Education (Consecutive Diploma/Degree) is a four-year program that leads to both an Early Childhood Education (ECE) diploma and an Honours Bachelor of Early Childhood Leadership degree from George Brown College.

This program offers some distinct advantages:

• college-level tuition fees for the first two years, rather than higher university fees
• classes with George Brown College faculty who are national leaders in applied ECE
• practical training at one of George Brown’s 12 child-care lab schools located across the Greater Toronto Area
• direct entry into the third year of the George Brown College degree program
• expanded career scope and direction by earning both a diploma and degree in ECE

PROGRAM STANDARDS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The graduate has reliably demonstrated the ability to:

• Create learning contexts to enable, build and maintain caring, responsive relationships in partnerships with children, families and communities that value and respect social, cultural and linguistic diversity including Indigenous peoples’ worldviews and Francophone identity.
• Co-create, facilitate and reflect upon inquiry and play-based early years and child care programs and pedagogical approaches to support children’s learning, holistic development and well-being following children’s capabilities, interests, ideas and experiences.
• Co-design and maintain inclusive early learning environments to value and support equitable, accessible and meaningful learning opportunities for all children, their families and communities in a range of early years and child care settings.
• Collaborate with children, families, colleagues, agencies and community partners to create, maintain, evaluate and promote safe and healthy early learning environments to support independence, reasonable risk-taking and healthy development and well-being.

CAREER OPTIONS

Graduates of this degree program will have the knowledge and practice base to influence pedagogy and curriculum. They will be prepared to move into supervisory, director and curriculum leadership positions in a full range of early childhood programs as their careers unfold or as they pursue further study.

This program prepares graduates for positions as Registered Early Childhood Educators, working in partnership with certified teachers in the Full-Day Early Learning programs that are replacing junior and senior kindergarten.

YOUR CAREER

Graduates may find work in a variety of early childhood settings, including:

• child-care centres
• family drop-in programs
• early intervention services
• family support programs

Emerging Best Start Child and Family Centres will be integrated with existing early childhood programs and graduates will be well positioned to assume leadership positions within these centres.