 DCU has launched Ireland's first Early Childhood Research Centre. This research centre aims to put Ireland on the global map of Early Childhood Research. It will be the first such dedicated centre that will promote research, policy and practice in the field of Early Childhood Studies. This will also come as a great investment for Early Childhood Education and Primary Teaching students at DCU. Early Childhood is such an important stage in a child's development and it's really important that we develop their oral language, their writing, their reading. We're told about it in every single class, so I think Early Childhood Research is really important. The research centre will be led by Professor Mathias Urban, following his appointment as Desmond Chair in Early Childhood Education at DCU in September 2017. Professor Urban is the leading figure globally in the field of Early Childhood Research and has made many significant contributions in the area of Early Childhood Research. I think it's important to start off the children on the path towards learning early because sometimes you can kind of neglect that base and leave them on their own devices. We are making steps towards better systems for that kind of thing but it's nice to see the governments take a handle as well. Is that the difference it makes? You know, involving play and Early Childhood Education is really, really important and we've learned so much in our course about it too. So it definitely is huge for the development of the children and I think a lot of people when they see ASTRA at first they think it's just basically play and how are the children learning but they're learning through experiences, interacting with one another, interacting with different materials. Millions of children in Ireland under the age of six will access some form of Early Education. The new research centre will attempt to better understand and develop new educational techniques. Shawna Bird is DCU TV News.