Senate passed bill that will enhance early education on children below 6 years old

SENATE OFFICE, Manila, May 30, 2011-Senator Edgardo J. Angara said that it is expected to benefit 17 million Filipino children after the senate passed today on Third and Final Reading the Senate bill 2802 otherwise known as early years act that would enhance early education among children below six years old.

  

Angara, who authored the bill along with Senate President Pro-Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago said that the proposed law aims to shift the concept of the day care center from a playroom to a learning center by rationalizing and restructuring the day care into an early childhood education center.

“The bill aims to improve the educational system in the country with the crafting of a formal curriculum for pre-school pupils that will enable them to cope with elementary lessons,” Angara said, saying that forty percent of the children entering Grade I are not ready for school. As such, four out of 10 children drop out of the elementary level and never return to complete their education.

“The National Achievement Test conducted earlier among 1.6 million Grade Six students revealed that a mean percentage score (MPS) of 59.9 percent which means that for every ten items, a Grade Six student can correctly answer five items,” the Senator said.

Angara said that the measure aim to address the lack of facilities and limited teaching staff besetting pre-school education where he estimate that only 46% or about 2.5 million children below six years old are being accommodated by the available 49,000 day care centers nationwide.

“For the implementation of the Act, P500 million per year for the first five years will be appropriated for the National ECCD Program, which will be sourced from PAGCOR,” Angara said, adding that an initial annual appropriation of P1 billion from the GAA shall be provided to the ECCD Council.

Angara explained that they were able to minimize the initial funding requirement because the basic infrastructures for the child development centers are already there. “We will be using the existing daycare centers nationwide and turning them into more education-oriented institutions,” Angara said.

“The bill also seeks for the training of additional childhood development teachers so they could detect and identify gifted and development disorders and disabilities among children below six years old and make the corresponding recommendations where it entails more than just child-minding and childcare to includes the provision of health, nutrition, early education and social development services for the children. (Jason de Asis)