Vigorously promote early childhood care and development during the 13th Five-Year Plan

KP Sharma

The Ministry of Education and Skill Development (MoESD) plans to invest over Ngultrum 700 million during the 13th Five-Year Plan to establish more Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centres and renovate existing ones.

According to the ministry’s plan, focus will also be on building infrastructure, recreational facilities and procuring learning resources.

According to the plan, the Ministry of Education will build more than 100 early childhood education and development centers and renovate more than 80 existing facilities to ensure 100% access to education for children under five years old and improve the quality of education from the grassroots level.

The Ministry of Education also plans to provide home-based education in areas where school enrollment is low and it is difficult to establish formal ECCD centers.

The intervention aims to ensure that all children have access to ECCD services and that no child is left behind in accessing early childhood education opportunities.

The ministry has allocated N460 million for setting up new ECCD centres and equipping them with adequate infrastructure, recreational facilities and learning resources.

N330.5 million has been allocated for professional development of ECCD facilitators and teachers of inclusive education.

According to officials of the Department of School Education (DSE), the family ECCD intervention will be set up in Chiwog district, where school enrolment is low, by providing children with play kits and resources under the guidance of their parents.Counsellors from nearby centers will visit the children monthly.

About 472 Chiwags have ECCD centres, while about 567 Chiwags lack such facilities.

Of these centres, the Ministry of Education plans to integrate 295 early childhood care centres with a school up to Grade 3.

Although the ministry initially planned to establish schools with ECCD facilities in 207 Chiwoag islands, it was later discovered that not all Chiwoag islands required such facilities as some sparsely populated Chiwoag islands shared one school.

To ensure quality teachers, the Ministry of Education has proposed reducing the student-teacher ratio from 1:15 to 1:8 under the National Teacher Service Scheme.

Paro Institute of Education will launch a postgraduate diploma course in early childhood care and child development to improve the qualifications of counsellors.

Currently, ECCD trainers are usually Grade 12 graduates who have received only two weeks of training, which is not enough for them to acquire the necessary skills and improve their professional service level.

There are 561 ECCD centres in the country, of which 475 are government owned, 62 are privately owned, 20 are workplace owned and four are run by NGOs.