Maximizing ECE to achieve primary school competence

In 1986 during the administration of President Corazon Aquino, DECS Secretary Lourdes Quisumbing organized CONCEP, the national coordinating council for Early Childhood Education for the Philippines with DECS Order 29 series of 1987. This constituted a taskforce of preschool experts including me, chosen by Dr. Quisumbing herself to act as an advisory taskforce to DECS, as PAFTE was the advisory body to DECS for teacher education. Its ultimate objective was that CONCEP would eventually be an accrediting agency for Early Childhood Education (ECE).

Three national conventions were held consulting preschool owners, teachers and parents regarding the revision of the old 1965 DECS guideline for preschooling. CONCEP published the UNESCO sponsored preschool manual, “Planning the Young Child’s Education” (A Guide for Parents, Teachers and Preschool Administrators) by 1997.

Monthly meetings were held at the DECS Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE) with Dr. Nita Guerrero, who has remained CONCEP consultant up to now. Other BEE directors who worked with CONCEP were Dr. Edith Carpio, Dr. Marcelina Miguel, and Dr. Lidinila Santos. The Education Secretaries who succeeded Dr. Quisumbing were Secretaries Isidro Carino, Armand Fabella, Butch Abad, Edilberto de Jesus, Andrew Gonzalez, Raul Roco and Jesli Lapus, each of whom would get acquainted with the CONCEP Board of Directors. Congress would also refer to CONCEP during committee hearings. They invited me twice to explain the different aspects of ECE that aided in developing ECE legislation that would eventually institutionalize it within the official education ladder of the Philippines.

The use of Pagsasarili preschool curriculum in DSWD day care center and DepEd kindergarten

For the past 25 years, the O.B. Montessori Child and Community Foundation helped convert a series of DSWD Day Care Centers. It started with seven ZIP-NHA areas of Manila, then seven in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Ifugao. In 2007 the UNESCO Director General called for quality Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). DepEd engaged the OBMCCFI to help 25 public preschools all over Luzon including 12 in MIMAROPA (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) convert into Pagsasarili Preschool.

Among the local mayors and governors who helped spread quality preschooling, Governor Vilma Santos Recto was so completely sold to the idea of converting day care centers to preschools, so that as Mayor of Lipa, she made sure Lipa would have 15 Pagsasarili trained teachers every year between 2005-2009, totaling 60. When she became governor she added 45 more.

Teachers, parents and grandparents fully admire the children’s accomplishments, specially their character development. In general, having acquired third grade competence, they become honor students. At home, they love to work and are orderly. No longer timid, they converse with ease. A grandmother in Mamburao commented, “Marunong pang mag Ingles and apo ko. Parang anak mayaman.”

The missing factor for maximizing the capacity of preschoolers

Traditional education makes use of the teacher actively directing the lessons of children with notebooks, blackboard and textbooks. The Pagsasarili system has a third factor that conditions and maximizes the self-confidence of preschool children: the Prepared Environment of work.

The classroom has four open shelves of Practical Life exercises: Language, Math and Cultural Arts (Geography World and Asia Puzzle Maps, Classified Botany and Zoology Cards, History Family Charts).

Practical Living Exercises – Given one of a kind material, each child works on different apparata. For Personal Grooming: five Dressing Frames, buttoning, shoelacing, ribbons, buckles, hook and eye. For Housekeeping: small broom, dust pan, wastebasket, box of scrap papers to sweep. Laundering: table to hold basin, pitcher of water, dish of laundry soap, six small hankies to wash. Table Setting requires plastic placemat per child; a tray of snack plates and drinking glasses (preferably breakable but sturdy, to encourage child’s care). Fig. 1, 2, 3.

Cultural Arts make use of the World and Asia puzzle maps, control maps, complete with country names and capitals. History chart of ages of each family members (parents and siblings). Zoology Classified Nomenclature cards of fishes, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals; and Botany Classified Nomenclature Cards of a tree, a flower, a leaf. Fig. 4a, 4b.

Language, Math and Arts – Each material has several sets to gradate difficulties in 3 R’s. For Language, individual Sandpaper Letters (lower case) are traced with two fingers while saying the sound. The 26 alphabets are divided into a, e, i, o, u; short letters: c, m, n, s, r, v, w, x; tall letters: b, d, h, k, l, t and tail letters: f, g, q, p, y, z. Kartilya cards combining consonants with vowels are the first reading cards. This facilitates reading phonetic words (nouns).

A plastic farmhouse with animals, introduce noun cards, adjectives (black horse, brown dog, tall farmer, white hen, etc.), conjunctions and preposition. This leads to sentence reading. See Fig. 5a, 5b.

For Math Arts learning 1 to 10 make use of Number Rods: ten red and blue rods, 1 decimeter to 1 meter arranged from 1 to 10. Number Cards are placed opposite the corresponding rod.

The Decimal Box pictures the whole frame of numeration is made up of wooden units (1’s), bars (10’s), squares (100’s), and cubics (1000’s). See Fig 6

A chance to reverse our failure to meet UNMDG #2 to ensure quality primary education

Although EDCOM 1990 already recommended the institutionalization of ECE, it is only this year that it will become a reality. The question however is the right choice of curriculum. The DepEd Minimum Learning Competencies prescribed to preschool has consistently resulted in the phenomenon of 40 percent. Grade I drop-outs within the year, all over public gradeschool. We are indeed a nation in crisis, as Senator Angara puts it after the EDCOM survey.

Given the successful replication of the Pagsasarili Preschools, which automatically maximize the competencies of Pagsasarili preschoolers to acquire third grade competence, what choice do we have?