We need help':Early childhood institutions lament lack of resources to meet ECC standards

BY DENISE DENNIS Career & Education staff reporter FIVE years after Government put in place national standards for the operation of early childhood institutions, no school has earned registration approval from the Early Childhood Commission (ECC).The ECC has policy development and oversight responsibility for the early childhood sector. To that end, they have stipulated 12 standards concerning staff, programmes, behaviour management, the physical environment, equipment and furnishing, health, nutrition, safety, child rights, protection and equality, parent and stakeholder participation, administration, and finance that institutions must meet in order to be registered.[Hide Description] WILLIAMS... we are going to see how best we can work with these institutions to get financial support[Restore Description]1/1As yet, no early childhood institution has met all the criteria, and school administrators say it is because the high standards are impossible to be attained given their lack of funding."There is little that is being provided and so much that is expected," said the principal of an early childhood institution in St Elizabeth, who spoke to the Jamaica Observer on condition of anonymity.She insisted that early childhood institutions require support to achieve at least some of "the requests that they [the ECC] are laying out on paper"."[For example], most of the times, you don't collect 50 per cent of the school fees. However, they are asking you to open a chequing account, but there are no fees. It's stagnant. So when they come in to assess you and it comes down to the finance aspect, most times you get a zero because there is no money for you to open a chequing account," said the principal, whose school caters to more than 60 students.The ECC, she said, also requires that schools establish a learning corner. But with limited financial resources, the principal said many schools are unable to source the necessary material.The commission also provides a model of how the schools are to be structured, but the principal said this, too, remains only a goal for her institution given the woeful lack of funding."Even though you know you have these expectations, these standards, you have to just be looking at it because there is nothing more you can do," she said.Meanwhile, despite being unable to provide all the particulars from the list of standards the ECC provides, the educator said the community is satisfied that her school is doing the best it can with the resources it has to turn out model students."They know that the funding is not there to have the infrastructure that will [create] the school that they [the ECC] have placed as a model school. But they are looking at the product that their children are being fostered with," she said."The Early Childhood Commission is not looking at that; they are looking at the physical, which under these conditions we cannot go up to [meet]. The little ones that are here, they are the ones that are going to form the foundation for tomorrow's society. If you are talking about their upliftment [and] you are not helping, what is going to happen for tomorrow's society, what is going to happen to them?" she added.The principal of a Kingston-based early childhood institution, who did not want to be named, echoed the same sentiments. She, like her colleague from St Elizabeth, said it is very difficult to afford all the material necessary to bring her school up to ECC standards.The head of another such institution, this one in Clarendon, insisted that it is "unfair" for them to be asked to meet standards they simply cannot finance. She has called on the ECC to provide them with assistance."They need to put more money on early childhood education and stop saying that they are going to do it. That is the foundation that everybody comes from; focus on putting money into early childhood," said the Clarendon principal, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.Manager of Development Services at the ECC Richard Williams has sympathised with the administrators, but said the standards cannot be changed as they are minimum standards.However, he said that the commission has partnered with the Ministry of Education to put in place an initiative that should see some 500 schools coming into compliance within the next financial year.To make it happen, Williams said that based on the ECC school inspections, the 500 institutions closest to complying with the standards will be targeted. He noted that the commission will be costing every item required by the set of standards to measure the economic burden to the school and provide assistance to get them registered."We are going to see how best we can work with these institutions to get financial support, human resources or whatever it is, to assist those institutions," Williams said.At the same time, he said that initiatives such as Crayons Count have been helpful in bridging the gap by providing at least some of the most basic learning material.Williams said he would like to see these initiatives maintained and has called on companies that provide teaching and learning material to be sensitive to the needs of early childhood institutions, parents and students who cannot afford these expensive but important learning tools.Last year, at Observer's Monday Exchange, Williams said 900 institutions were granted provisional permits to operate, but were not registered. He told reporters and editors at the time that this was because schools were not completing the application process by providing all the required documents, including public health and fire certification.In order to become certified, each applicant who operates or owns an early childhood facility must provide two passport-sized photographs, along with references, a food handler's permit, clean police records, and medical certificates for each of their employees. Owners/operators must also provide job descriptions for each of their employees and their terms of employment, in addition to the safety reports from the Jamaica Fire Brigade and Public Health Department.Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/career/We-need-help_13263660#ix...