Childhood institutions fail standard test
Published:Saturday | June 12, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Only 500 of the nations 2,800 early-childhood institutions that have sought space permit have satisfied fundamental guidelines.
This was disclosed by communications manager of the Early Childhood Commission (ECC), Marsha Grant, who said the watchdog would continue to work with school administrators to improve standards.
"We are currently working with the schools. By not having a permit, it means they need more training and they are doing that. They need to upgrade their facilities and we are working with them to get that done," she added.
Grant urged institutions that are yet to adhere to registration procedures to sign up with the commission to benefit from existing development programmes and initiatives.
The ECC communications manager said it had identified 300 early-childhood schools which hav still not been registered.
"We are constantly calling on the remaining 300 schools to come in and register, once you are registered even though you are not given permits to operate, you are monitored," she said.
"Inspection continuously occurs, so one school can be inspected twice to three times, depending on what we find," Grant added.
The ECC was one of the groups present at the Dudley Grant Memorial Trust Early Childhood Expo armed with materials to educate professionals who turned up to explore cutting-edge practices and methodologies for stimulating and nurturing young minds.
Project Director Cecil Minott said the main aim of the expo was to provide parents, practitioners and early-childhood stakeholders with information to develop teaching skills.
"A lot of our practitioners don't know where to go for information, so we put this on to help the practitioners and stakeholders to get the information that they need to help our children," Minott said.
"At the end of the day, it is the children who will benefit, so we are trying to provide the teaching/learning materials for them," she added.
Information booths were also set up by the Office of the Children's Registry, the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Library Service.