The first evaluation report of the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) programme in the country calls for a multi-sectoral approach and collaborative effort to enhance ECCD system in the country, which at the moment is lacking. As per the report, ECCD is primarily a multi-sectoral intervention that is rooted in consideration of health, nutrition, social protection and parenting among others.
The report was carried out by the University of Hong Kong with support from UNICEF and the Education Ministry. The report was released today.
The report highlighted that there is a lack of common understanding of ECCD and its benefits among stakeholders and the access rates to centre-based ECCD remain low. There is a need to explore alternatives to increase outreach.
“So this evaluation is very timely to provide the government with a roadmap of how to improve not only the quality but also the access and coverage of ECCD. The report identified that whilst children who are attending ECCD centres, they are performing very well when they reach primary school compared to children who do not attend ECCD. While that is true, what we found from the evaluation is the coverage and access is still quite low in the country,” said Dr Will Parks, the UNICEF Bhutan Representative.
The report is a call to invest smartly, not just in education, but also in health, nutrition and protection as they all work together to promote a child’s healthy brain development.
“We need to see ECCD not as education only initiative, it’s actually about improving parenting, it’s improving health, it’s about improving nutrition and it’s about improving the environment where children are living so that it is safe. And with this combination of different sectors coming together, we can give children in Bhutan the best start in life and their success in school and then as citizens of the country are much better and secured by having this multi-sectoral approach in the early years of life,” he added.
The report will also serve as a critical reference document for the country’s first ECCD Multi-sectoral Strategic Action Plan which is currently being developed by the Education Ministry and UNICEF.
“The Multisectoral Strategic Action Plan is critical because the very nature of a child’s development is multidisciplinary which involves physical health, mental health, nutrition caregiving, early learning, safety and security. That is why it is not enough that one sector looks at ECCD as a whole and does everything. There is a need to integrate all of these aspects of development into the support services that we provide for children’s holistic development,” said Karma Gayleg, an ECCD Specialist at the Education Ministry.
Bhutan has committed to increasing ECCD enrolment rate to at least 50 % by 2024 and 100 % by 2030. As of last year, the enrolment rate in ECCD centres was 25.3 %.
Sonam Pem
