DepEd pushes pre-school summer program

The Department of Education (DepEd), following the lead of Early Childhood Care and Development Council (ECCDC), has launched a summer program in schools nationwide for children aiming to enter pre-school and elementary this year.

DepEd’s six-week Summer Pre-school Education Program will start on April 12 and end on May 21. Parallel to this is ECCDC’s Summer Readiness Program (SRP), a six-week curriculum for children ages 3 to 5 aiming to enter elementary.

ECCDC has expressed confidence that millions of Filipino children entering grade school for the first time in June will benefit from the summer programs.

The summer programs are being implemented to help first-time schoolers develop a positive attitude toward education.

DepEd’s summer program is part of the expanded preschool education that aims to prepare all Grade 1 entrants for academic work.

The Education department previously implemented an eight-week program during school days, but decided to follow the lead of ECCDC after seeing the advantage of it’s summer program.

The council was created by Executive Order 778 issued on January 2009 with Republic Act 8980, or the ECCDC Act, as the legal basis for the implementation of quality home-based and center-based educational programs, in partnership with stakeholders, for all Filipino children ages 0 to 6.

Studies conducted by the ECCDC have shown that attaining success in the first grade encourages school children to stay on and complete elementary education. Further studies also found that the quality of preschool experiences determine the performance of children in the higher years.

The program will cater to prospective Grade 1 entrants without preschool experience by June 2010. To qualify for the program, the children must be 5 years and 9 months old on April 12.

The Bureau of Elementary Education of the Education department has been implementing a preschool program since the 1970s.

However, as of 2008, only 42 percent of preschool children from public and private schools have been reached by the program.

This, in turn, has resulted in low readiness for schooling of Grade 1 children and in high incidence of non-readers and dropouts prevailing until Grade 3.

The summer program aims to increase the number of 5-year-old children with preschool experiences from 919,800 (42 percent) in 2008 to 1,659,800 (76 percent) by year 2012.

Based on the approved guidelines, each class will have a minimum of 20 and a maximum of 25 students.

Only the permanent preschool teachers and Grade I teachers with Early Childhood Education training are qualified to handle the summer pre-school classes. –RUBEN D. MANAHAN 4th Reporter, Manila Times