The country can expect adequate Early Childhood Care and Development or ECCD centres with better infrastructure manned by enough facilitators. In the 13th Five-Year Plan, the Education and Skills Development Ministry is set to invest over Nu 700 M in the construction and renovation of ECCD centres. Officials from the ministry shared this during a coordination meeting with the local government officials in the capital this week. The initiative aims to achieve 100 per cent access to ECCD for children below five.
According to the ministry’s Department of School Education, the plan includes building 133 new ECCD centres and renovating 84 existing centres. The project will start within this fiscal year.
“The goal is to ensure all children aged three to five have 100 per cent access to ECCDs. This is planned to provide proper guidance and preparation from younger ages to improve the quality of education in the future. Research indicates that cognitive development in a person occurs from birth to age five,” said Sherub Gyeltshen, chief planning officer of the ECCD and SEN Division under the Department of School Education.
During the meeting, local leaders raised their concerns about the current state of ECCDs and the need for proper infrastructure and sufficient facilitators across the nation.
“In my gewog, ECCD centres are built, but there are no facilitators. Some centres are neglected because they are not registered with RCSC, leading to the transfer of facilitators elsewhere,” said Vaskar Chapagai, Denchukha Gup, Samtse.
“Most of the ECCD facilitators are women. When the lone female facilitator leaves for maternity leave, there is nobody to take care of or facilitate children at the centre. It would be beneficial to have two facilitators, ideally one man and one woman to provide continuous support,” said Kinlay Dorji, Geling Gup, Chhukha.
“Yesterday, the ministry shared their plans to renovate and build ECCD centres which is great news for gewogs. In my gewog, there is a centre but we do not have any facilities. Therefore, it would be great to build a new facility or maintain the existing one with necessary facilities,” said Phurpa Gyeltshen, Ramjar Gup, Trashi Yangtse.
“ECCD facility is very essential and beneficial for our children. It provides a basic foundation for our rural children for their future. It prepares them to get ready for school and class PP,” said Nima Dukpa, Tendruk Gup, Samtse.
The Chief Planning Officer of the ministry’s ECCD and SEN Division said that the ministry will also submit a proposal to the Royal Civil Service Commission to open 39 ECCD centres which are already constructed and deploy 52 new facilitators.
The proposal also includes reducing the children-facilitator ratio from one teacher for 15 children to one teacher for eight children. If the proposal gets approved, the centres having children with disabilities will get one teacher for five children.
For gewogs with less than eight children, the ministry is also piloting a home-based intervention method by providing play kits and guidance at home. In this method, the facilitator from the nearest centre visits the children’s home once a month.
Currently, there are 561 ECCD centres including 475 government-owned, 62 privately owned, 20 workplace-based centres and four operated by Non-Government Organisations.
Namgay Dema
Edited by Phub Gyem
