Roving Caregivers Programme the solution to early education - Shirley

HALF OF the Caribbean's children have no access to early-childhood education, said a founding director of the Foundation for Caribbean Children (FDCC), Ann Shirley.

Shirley, who was speaking on Ronald Thwaites' 'Independent Talk' radio talk show last Wednesday, also said by the time they enter school, 25 to 30 per cent of Caribbean children do not possess the cognitive skills necessary for formal education.

Additionally, she said one third of Caribbean children receive no brain stimulation from their parents.

Shirley explained that the only way to fix the problems those statistics represent is through widespread implementation and sustainability of the Roving Caregivers Programme (RCP).

"We think it's important for our children to go to prep school and pass Grade Six Achievement Test and all of that. What we're saying (though) is you need to start that investment from birth," Shirley said.

The RCP, which started in 1992 in Clarendon, is a free home-visitation programme, in which caregivers, trained in early-childhood stimulation techniques, visit the homes of children aged zero to three to play with them. This play helps the children's development as well as their social interaction skills.

"Studies show that by age six, 99.99 per cent of the brain is developed. So if you don't capture the children between zero and five, the cards are set," Shirley said.

The programme is currently being replicated in four Eastern Caribbean islands and Belize. But it has been significantly scaled down and could cease in Jamaica, due to a lack of funding.

Shirley called on corporate Jamaica to invest in the RCP to help keep it going in Jamaica, as there is currently a lack of sufficient funding.

She said the FDCC, along with the University of the West Indies, is currently undertaking studies that could link workforce productivity to brain stimulation in those early years.

"It is worth your while down the road to invest in the beginning," she said, appealing to companies to invest in the RCP.

Meanwhile, co-founder of the RCP, Utealia Burrell, who was also on the show, said a programme like RCP was necessary to help address a lot of social ills.

"We have to capture them (children) before they end up in the prisons," Burrell said, explaining that many of society's problems are due to the breakdown of the family.