The first-ever South Asia regional conference on early childhood development (ECD) ended in Dhaka on December 9. The three day meeting at the Bangabandhu International Centre was attended by four hundred people, including over a hundred academics, researchers and practitioners from all the South Asian countries and renowned experts from USA, UK, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. The Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN) and the Asia-Pacific Regional Network on Early Childhood (ARNEC) jointly hosted the South Asian Conference.
At the closing plenary, Dr. Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, the Minister of State for Women and Children's Affairs, spoke about the vital importance of the early stage of development in the human life cycle. She noted that the "developmental milestones" of young children, from birth to five years, have different dimensions --physical development, social and emotional development, thinking skills, and communication skills.
The government has committed itself to expanding preschool services. Pre-schooling is seen as a strategy to improve quality of primary education and address the serious dropout, retention, and attendance problems in primary schools. There are plans to open some 37,000 preschool classes in government primary schools with the appointment of a teacher in each school for this purpose.
This is a much needed step to help children, especially the first generation learners whose parents often are without literacy skills, prepare well for primary school. The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education and the responsible government agency, the Directorate of Primary Education, would do well to carry out this initiative in close cooperation with NGOs that have been offering preschool education in many communities.
Some 20,000 preschools are run by NGOs in addition to about 8,000 run under the auspices of a Unicef-supported project of the Shishu Academy, mostly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts districts. A process of teacher preparation, supervision, designing of
curricular content and provision for learning materials has emerged in both the NGO and the Shishu Academy programmes.
BEN the ECD Resource Center at Brae University, which is the secretariat of the Network, have assisted in training, curriculum review and materials development. It would make good
sense to take full advantage of the work that has been already done, instead of "re-inventing the wheel. ”
While the objective of preschool expansion for children of age 5-6 years is well accepted, no clear strategy or goal has emerged yet regarding the services for total development of the younger children -- cognitive, social and emotional, as well as, physical development of children until they reach the preschool stage.
Attention also has to be given to fetal health and growth during pregnancy until birth. A quarter of the newborn babies have low birth weight, which is a predictor of health and developmental problems in later life.
At present, development at the early
stage of life is not anybody's specific responsibility in the government. The Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs formally has the portfolio of children, as its title suggests. It, however, has yet to establish the organisational structure or entity to take the lead on behalf of the government in maintaining an oversight and coordinating the efforts and initiatives of various government agencies, NGOs and the private sector.
Different approaches can be taken to develop an organisational capacity in the government for looking after the interest of children and promoting children's total development. Sri Lanka has had a Children's Secretariat since 1979 with professional people within its staff and engaged as advisers within the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. India has set up a statutory National Children's Commission, with its chair given the authority of a justice of the Supreme Court.
A comprehensive early childhood development policy is under consideration. A revision of the National Children's policy is underway. In these initiatives the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs is expected to provide the lead.
The fulfillment of Vision 2021 and the preparation of the sixth five year national development plan will require the ministry to uphold the interest of children forcefully. More importantly, the ministry has to oversee and monitor the implementation of these policies and plans in cooperation with major stakeholders. An appropriate solution must be found to strengthen the management and technical capacity of the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs for it to do justice to its mandate.
Dr. Manzoor Ahmed is the Chair ol the Bangladesh ECD Network (BEN).