With the brand-new year off to a fresh start, we cannot help mulling and thinking about multifarious things. At the rate events have been unfolding in the country and abroad, it would seem that the last thing we would know is that events have already overtaken us. Thus, the age-old adage of “be prepared” has taken on a more serious, urgent tone.
As with any exigency, people worry about two extremely diverse, but vulnerable age groups – the (very) young and its exact opposite, now more euphemistically referred to as “senior citizens.”
Let’s focus on the expectations that our local government has for its children, which should be very basic – that its children must be all contributing members to the community. Government is aware that the path to the nation’s future, its prosperity, and security begin with the well-being of all its children.
In line with the United Nations Convention For the Rights of the Child, for which the Philippines is a signatory, the collective vision for every child is that not one child in any city, province, or locality be left behind. It is the dream of any nation that all its children must be healthy, literate, innovative, resourceful, good communicators, confident, and when their time to be independent comes, to be skilled and gainfully employed.
Children should not only have a healthy start. They should also have a safe start. Children must live and be nurtured in safe communities free from criminals and thugs and drugs. Above all, children must have the best start in life.
At the centerpiece of this philosophy is the Early Childhood and Care Development (ECCD) Program administered by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that has offices both in the city and provincial level all over the country.
The core reason for the ECCD Program is to increase the school readiness of children from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Take the kids of Filipino boxer and former Senator Manny Pacquiao, for instance. They express themselves in fluent English as their father could afford expensive language tutors and to send them to international schools. Children of affluent families and celebrities are products of the Montessori brand of a school system. Unarguably, children who are born and raised in privileged environments generally do well in school and in society. The ECCD Program tries to level the gap between the rich and the poor children in terms of school readiness and life out of school.
Meanwhile, children enrolled in the government’s ECCD do not pay any tuition. The program is for free. Teachers and the upkeep of the day-care center are paid for by the government. At times, the children are fed, their height and weight monitored. ECCD centers are usually equipped with toilets and hand-washing facilities for children to use. It is a well-established fact that poor families have no access to sanitary toilet and potable water – necessities that children from poor families barely have. Sanitation and personal hygiene are imparted in the ECCD centers.
Learning in ECCD is play-based – children play to learn. The alphabets and numbers are taught through singing. Values are learned through story-telling. There is no rush. Children learn at their own pace. Children are also taught discipline, the basic building block of society. They pray before eating, use garbage bins, fall in line, tidy up their tables before leaving school, not take other children’s toys, pens and papers, and to respect their classmates.
The ECCD, therefore, is a program to straighten a twig while still young. Early education is a lot better and less expensive than rehabilitation in prison.
Studies reveal that the first 11 years is the most critical period in the development of the child. It is in this period that children’s brain cells, neurons, and synapses develop. The more brain cells, neurons, and synapses the children have, the better they are intellectually, socially, and morally. The growth of brain cells and the inter-connections of neurons and synapses speeds up with play and other activities at the ECCD.
The gap between the rich and the poor children is, therefore, narrowed. Today, cities and municipalities nationwide invest on early child care and development. Someday, in the near future, it will reap what it has sown. | With reports from student intern, Gail Selda
