UNICEF values the holistic development of preschool children

With reference to the article “Does UNICEF value the maximum learning competencies of three- to six-year-olds in a preschool?” (Preciosa S. Soliven, 8th September 2011), UNICEF agrees with the author that the preschool years are crucial in the formation of intelligence, personality and social behavior. We also agree that early childhood education is a key strategy for achieving the millennium development goal on universal access to primary education.

UNICEF would like to reiterate that our approach values the holistic development of preschool children so that they grow and develop to be physically healthy, mentally alert, emotionally secure, socially competent and ready to learn. In order for children to develop their potential, UNICEF’s global experience and independent research shows that these young children require good nutrition, particularly iron, iodine and breastfeeding, as well as regular health checks and vaccinations in the first two years of life. A child needs to be healthy; repeated bouts of illness will eventually reduce learning potential. Children also need positive and loving interactions with adults and stimulating and responsive environments that provide opportunities for emotional security and early learning. Direct learning experiences targeted at younger and most disadvantaged children are the most effective, especially when integrated with family support, health and nutrition. It is for these reasons that UNICEF supports governments, including the Philippines, in expanding access to a comprehensive quality early childhood development programs.

For the last 10 years in the Philippines, UNICEF has supported the strengthening and expansion of interventions for the zero to three-year-olds that included maternal and child health and nutrition, and water and sanitation through the Department of Health and National Nutrition Center. Likewise, UNICEF has supported the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Education and the ECCD (Early Childhood Care and Development) Council in improving policies and programs benefitting parents and three-year-old children, especially targeting the most vulnerable populations in remote, rural and conflict areas as well as in urban poor communities. UNICEF supported the formulation of standards and tools and expanding access to center and home-based ECCD services. Last year, UNICEF supported ECCD Council in conducting a State-of-the-Art Review of Day Care Service in the Philippines, developing the National Plan on the promotion of the home-based services and developing the National Early Learning Framework. UNICEF also supported DSWD in automating its information system and in revising its accreditation standards and tools for center-and home-based ECCD facilities. All these are aimed at creating quality, sustainable services for the critical early years of a child’s life, particularly the most disadvantaged children in the Philippines.

An integral part of UNICEF’s comprehensive support is the assistance to DepEd in the implementation of its universal kindergarten program. As the author correctly pointed out, UNICEF supported the revision of its kindergarten curriculum. UNICEF also supported the kindergarten training program through a model that will best reach an estimated 20,000 kindergarten teachers and over a million five-year-old children in 2011.

The DepED kindergarten program, like the O.B. Montessori Pagsasarili preschool, is anchored on the principles of learning and teaching that view children as active learners and address their holistic needs as human beings. Play and concrete experiences figure prominently in the revised kindergarten curriculum. Studies on brain development have confirmed that play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation as well as for promoting language, cognition and social competence. Play gives children the opportunities to develop physical competence, understand and make sense of their world, work through their emotions, develop symbolic and problem-solving skills and practice emerging skills. (NAEYC, 2009; Coople and Bredekamp, 2009)

The feedback from stakeholders who have since adopted the revised kindergarten curriculum are encouraging. They include school heads from regular public preschools and the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation (NCAF)/ AGAPP Working Group which is currently supporting over a hundred public pre-schools.

We will continue to work with the Philippine government and other stakeholders in continuing to find ways of enhancing and improving the quality of all ECCD programs in the Philippines.