A survey is to be carried out of all Early Childhood Education Schools in Anguilla to ensure that the environments, in which they are operating, and other related matters, are conducive to good teaching practices, learning and caring.
A four-day course opened at the Teachers’ Resource Centre on Monday, May 7, to train participants in the forthcoming Quality Assessment Survey for Early Childhood Environments, with assistance from UNICEF.
Anguilla’s Education Officer, Primary/Pre-Primary, Veda Harrigan, said that the coming assessment was quite new to Anguilla. “We have a number of Early Childhood establishments, monitored by the Departments of Education and Social Development, but we were never on the receiving end of formal training for this purpose,” she noted.
“The fact you have travelled here, serves to remind us of how important this training is to the development of our centres,” she told the UNICEF representative and consultant. “The Ministry of Education is committed to actively raising the standards of care and education offered at all of these centres. We want all of our children to achieve their full potential of the quality of what is being offered to them.” She was grateful to UNICEF for sponsoring the workshop.
Permanent Secretary, Education, Mrs. Chanelle Petty-Barrett, said the training would better equip the participants to carry out the survey of learning and caring at the Early Childhood centres. “I believe that it is fair to say that all of us recognise that early stimulation and high standards of quality in Early Childhood development have lasting impact on children’s educational growth,” she observed. “While we make efforts to improve standards at all of our schools, we must pay keen attention to what is happening at this level.”
The Permanent Secretary thanked UNICEF for partnering with Anguilla. “We are pleased that UNICEF so readily pledged its support to assist in conducting this survey, and we are grateful for the ongoing guidance and feedback,” Mrs. Petty-Barrett said. She was confident that the expertise made available to Anguilla would assist in making important improvements to the centres.
UNICEF’s representative, Shelly-Harper, from Barbados, said in part: “This is an exciting time for early childhood development, and across the region we have been seeing a lot of interest – and we have the backing of the international community as well. For example, we have our brain and early childhood development specialists and neuro-scientists – and they are reminding us that the 0-3 and 3-5 age groups are very critical to early childhood development.”
She noted that economists were saying that early childhood education must be seen as an investment. It was a stage where less would be spent on remediation, and transition of children from pre-school to primary school, enabling them to perform better.
The UNICEF representative stated that the findings of the survey would help to determine how the Early Education centres could be improved. She looked forward to working with the appropriate persons in Anguilla to maximise the opportunities of investments being made in the children.
The Consultant for the training, Mrs. Sian Williams, ofJamaica, said among other matters thatit was a highly technical exercise for the participants. “It is an important role because not only will you be assisting people to see where there are deficits and weaknesses in what they do, but you will also be showing them that you are representing a Ministry which wants to see some positive change and joint action,” she stressed.
“The last thing we want is to have people running Early Childhood services that are weak, feeling that they are not going to be able to improve and they are on their own. Quite the opposite is intended. It is meant that you, as ambassadors, are prepared to change and identify what the priorities should be.”
Mrs. Susan Smith was grateful to UNICEF for assisting the Education Department with the survey and developing a policy for the Early Education centres.
