From ECD to Formal Education

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From ECD to Formal Education Issues and
Challenges during the Transition Philippines
Experience
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The Philippines Where We Work
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ECD Needs Issues

• Only 3 out of 10 children are able to go to
  daycare centers or preschools (Nationwide,
  Unicef, 2005)
• Vast majority of children have no prior ECD
  experiences when they enter the first grade of
  elementary education, leading to high dropout
  (14) and repetition (4.8) in the first few
  grades (Nationwide, DepEd, 2004)

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School Readiness Study

• School Readiness of Children In Various
  Socio-Economic Environments.
• A study awarded to Save the Children- Philippines
  Country Office by the Department of Social Work
  and Development, 2003)

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Significant determinants of school readiness

• Type of place whether rural or urban
• Marginalization status
• Exposure to early childhood education
• Health status
• Parents knowledge, attitude and practice on
  childrens cognitive development
• Parents practices in stimulating childrens
  school readiness
• Access to learning materials

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Type of place whether rural or urban

• The study confirms the general imbalance in
  opportunities for the urban and rural populace.
• Urban children living in non-marginalized areas
  were obviously exposed to more opportunities for
  growth and development, and these translated to
  better levels of school readiness in all the
  identified domains.

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Marginalization statusof childrens communities

• In general, areas which fall short of meeting
  their minimum basic needs are also not able to
  generate the resources and opportunities for
  enabling their young to achieve desired standards
  of growth and development.
• This deprivation negatively affects childrens
  levels of school readiness as well.

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Exposure to early childhood education

• Childrens exposure to early childhood education,
  through day care centers and preschools has been
  positively correlated with better levels of
  school readiness.
• This gives credence to the overall significance
  of providing young children varied and organized
  forms of early learning opportunities that
  stimulate their abilities to tackle more complex
  forms of learning later in school and manage the
  new school environment.

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Childrens health status

• Childrens health status figured out as an
  important determinant of school readiness too as
  it was positively correlated specifically with
  cognitive and social-emotional domains of school
  readiness as well as with the standard score.
• This implies that an integrated approach to
  nurturing childrens growth and development has
  to be a sine qua non in any intervention for the
  young. The childs biological disposition
  interacts with all his/her environmental forces
  to shape the nature of his/her development.

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Parents knowledge, attitude and practice on
childrens cognitive development

• Parents who teach numeracy and literacy skills to
  their children as well as expose them to learning
  materials, experiences outside the home and
  generally talk about schooling and encourage
  their children to go to school.
• Positive health habits such as bringing children
  to doctors even if they are not sick and giving
  them multivitamins. These parents had more
  holistic concepts of parenting and interacted
  with their children more in the following
  activities sharing stories, reading, talking
  about pictures, shopping, watching television,
  doing leisure activities, among others.

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Childrens access to learning materials

• This finding supports the value of exposing
  children to materials which could stimulate their
  learning at home, in preschool or day care
  settings and in the community of residence, in
  general.

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PhCO's ECD to Primary Transition Initiatives

• Target prospective grade one entrants and grade
  one pupils, along with their parents, teachers
  and other caregivers

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Summer Learning Program

• Offered to six year-old children who are about to
  enroll in Grade 1 and have no prior ECE exposure.
• Objectives
• Improve grade one entrants school readiness
  skills
• Reduce levels of dropout and repetition among
  first grade pupils
• Increase the skills of parents, teachers and
  other adult caregivers in providing educational
  stimulation and support to children transitioning
  to formal schooling

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Summer Learning Program

• The 7-week program focuses on skills and
  competencies in the areas which are deemed
  necessary for children to be more ready in
  tackling Grade 1 activities a) gross motor b)
  fine motor c) language d) socio-emotional e)
  cognitive and f) self-help.

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Summer Learning Program

• Trains community volunteer facilitators on the
  use of the Summer Learning Program Module.
• Includes activities that parents will do with
  children at home to reinforce what they learned
  in the program sessions
• Integrates parent education sessions, health and
  nutrition intervention such as height and weight
  assessment, deworming and dental service

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Other features of ECD-Primary transition
Initiatives

• School visits of children and families before
  school year starts
• Training of Grade 1 teachers making schools
  ready

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Costs of implementing Summer Learning Program

• For each site (village)
• SC support Includes training of facilitators,
  learning materials, community mobilization 180
• Community counterpart includes allowance for
  facilitator 33
• Estimated cost 213
• Average 15 children/site
• Cost/child 14

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Local Partners

• Local Councils for the Protection of Children
• City/Municipal level
• Barangay (Village) level

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Maraming Salamat po!