Early Childhood Education (BECEd): Course and Careers

TL;DR: The degree CHED prescribes is the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECEd), under CMO No. 76, series of 2017. It is four years and its sample curriculum totals 158 units, of which 63 units are early childhood specialisation courses. It leads to a board exam - Professional Teachers is a PRC regulatory board - and under the PRC's published implementing guidelines BECEd graduates now sit the licensure examination at the elementary level with a BECEd specialisation paper rather than the general elementary paper.

Two things trip people up on this degree. First, the name: CHED calls it Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, so a school advertising "BS Early Childhood Education" is using its own branding on top of the CHED framework. Second, the scope: BECEd is not "preschool BEEd". It is built around ages 0 to 8, which spans day care and child development centres, preschool, and the Kindergarten to Grade 3 key stage in formal school.

What BECEd Covers

CMO No. 76 describes BECEd as a four-year programme that "provides students with fundamental understanding and application of the principles of early childhood care and education, as well as experience in the application of these principles."

The stated goal is to "educate individuals to be competent early childhood practitioners working with children from 0-8 years old in various early childhood settings (home, community, school, and workplace)". The order says the programme is aligned with the National Early Learning Framework, the teacher standards then in force, and the first key stage - Kindergarten to Grade 3. CMO No. 76 also identifies the degree as an allied discipline of Teacher Education and Psychology.

The programme outcomes the order sets for the specialisation are unusually plain-spoken for a policy document: demonstrate content and pedagogical knowledge, demonstrate appreciation for diversity, manifest collaborative skills, demonstrate innovative thinking, possess critical and problem-solving skills, advocate for children's rights and equity, and pursue lifelong learning.

The 158-Unit Curriculum

The Professional Education block of 42 units is common to the teacher education degrees: foundation courses such as The Child and Adolescent Learner and Learning Principles, The Teaching Profession, The Teacher and the Community, School Culture and Organizational Leadership, and Foundation of Special and Inclusive Education; a pedagogical content knowledge block including Facilitating Learner-Centered Teaching, Assessment in Learning 1 and 2, Technology for Teaching and Learning 1, The Teacher and the School Curriculum, and Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum; and experiential learning made up of Field Study 1, Field Study 2 and Teaching Internship.

The 3-unit Special Topics slot is a single choice from a short menu that CMO No. 76 lists as Teaching Multi-age Classes, Environmental Education, or Integrative Teaching Strategies.

The 63 units that make it an early childhood degree

CMO No. 76 codes the specialisation courses ECE 1 to ECE 21:

Three of those are worth flagging to anyone deciding between BECEd and BEEd:

• Infant and Toddler Programs and Early Learning Environment are the courses that make the degree usable below school age. BEEd does not carry them.
• Management of Early Childhood Education Programs is the course behind running a centre rather than only teaching in one. If your longer-term plan is to open or manage a preschool, this is the unit that matters.
• Content and Pedagogy in the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education is ECE 21 in CMO No. 76, and it is the course where the law under it has moved. When the memorandum order was written, Republic Act No. 10157 made the mother tongue the primary medium of instruction in kindergarten, subject to exceptions where pupils had different mother tongues or the teacher was not proficient. Republic Act No. 12027, which lapsed into law on 10 October 2024, discontinued the mother tongue as the medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 and repealed inconsistent issuances, and DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025 made Filipino and English the primary media of instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3 from School Year 2025-2026, with Filipino Sign Language for deaf and hard-of-hearing learners under RA 11106. The course is still in the CHED curriculum and still has a job: regional and local languages remain auxiliary media, DO 020 requires translanguaging from the learner's first language, with greater emphasis on it in Kindergarten and Grade 1, and a monolingual class may keep its mother tongue as the medium where the RA 12027 criteria are met, including an orthography and vocabulary approved and published by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino. What has gone is the assumption that a kindergarten teacher will be teaching in it by default.

The Licence, and the Change to the Exam

Regular teaching posts require registration as a professional teacher, and Professional Teachers is one of the 46 Professional Regulatory Boards under the PRC.

What changed is the paper BECEd graduates sit. The PRC published guidelines implementing a PRC-CHED joint memorandum circular aligning the Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers with the teacher education curriculum. Under those guidelines, at the elementary level, current-curriculum BECEd graduates take General Education, Professional Education and a BECEd specialisation. Graduates of the old curriculum who took a BEEd with a major in Early Childhood Education take the ECE specialisation, and the guidelines direct applicants who majored in Pre-school Education to take the ECE specialisation as well. BECEd applicants are processed as first-time applicants, which means appearing personally at a PRC regional office with the documentary requirements.

That is a meaningful improvement for BECEd students: the exam now tests the 63 units they actually took. Our LET guide covers application mechanics and structure. Schedules move every cycle, so take the dates from the PRC's own announcements rather than from any blog.

Where BECEd Graduates Work

CMO No. 76 is broad on this point - it says a range of employment opportunities open up on completing the degree and that graduates qualify for employment in government or private institutions, without listing job titles the way some other memorandum orders do. In practice the destinations split three ways.

Formal school teaching, Kindergarten to Grade 3. This is the licensed route. Kindergarten is compulsory for entry to Grade 1 under Republic Act No. 10157, which means every public elementary school runs kindergarten classes. Our kindergarten enrollment guide covers the parent side of that system.

Preschool and private early learning centres. Private preschools, Montessori-style schools and international early years programmes hire from this degree. Requirements vary by operator, and many still require the professional teacher licence.

The 0-4 sector: day care and child development centres. This is governed differently. Republic Act No. 10410, the Early Years Act of 2013, recognises ages 0 to 8 as the first crucial stage of educational development, places ages 0 to 4 under the ECCD Council and ages 5 to 8 under the Department of Education, and tasks the Council with developing a national system for recruitment, registration, accreditation, continuing education and equivalency, and credentialing of service providers. If you are aiming at a barangay child development centre rather than a school, ask the local government unit and the ECCD Council which credential the post requires - it is not automatically the teachers' licence. Our guide to day care and child development centres covers how that sector is organised.

For families trying to work out what the levels are called before any of this applies to them, nursery vs preschool vs kinder sorts out the terminology.

BECEd Compared With BEEd

If you are still weighing the two, our BEEd guide sets out the generalist route in the same detail.

What to Ask Before You Enrol

• Confirm the school is authorised to offer BECEd, not a preschool track bolted onto a BEEd programme. Private institutions must secure CHED authority for the specific programme.
• Ask which Special Topics course actually runs. The menu has three options; a small department may offer one.
• Ask where field study and teaching internship are done. For this degree, a placement in an actual early years setting, not just a Grade 4 classroom, is the point.
• Ask whether the programme prepares you for the 0-4 sector at all, if that is your goal, and what credential the centres in your area require.
• Ask about the school's licensure results for education graduates rather than relying on reputation.
• Budget for the licence. Application, review and PRC registration all fall after your last tuition payment; for what the job pays afterwards, see teacher salary in the Philippines.

Bottom Line

BECEd is a specialist degree, not a softer version of elementary education. Its 63 units of early childhood coursework cover infant and toddler programmes, learning environments, play-based practice and centre management - content BEEd simply does not carry - and the licensure examination now tests that specialisation directly. Choose it if you want to work with the youngest learners and are willing to take the licence seriously. Choose BEEd if you want the flexibility to teach any elementary grade.

Comparing schools? Browse schools on SchoolFinderPH to see which institutions offer early childhood and elementary education programmes.

Sources

• CHED CMO No. 76, series of 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (official PDF)
• CHED CMO No. 74, series of 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Elementary Education (official PDF)
• Professional Regulation Commission - Guidelines on the Implementation of the PRC-CHED JMC on the Alignment of the LEPT with the Teacher Education Curriculum
• Professional Regulation Commission - Professional Regulatory Boards
• LawPhil - Republic Act No. 10410, Early Years Act of 2013
• LawPhil - Republic Act No. 10157, Kindergarten Education Act
• LawPhil - Republic Act No. 12027, discontinuing the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3
• DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025 - Policy on the Medium of Instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3 Effective School Year 2025-2026 (official PDF)