How daycare workers strengthen the Philippines’ human capital
UNICEF and partners empower child development workers through skills training
Northern Samar, 25 January 2024 – For 36-year-old Cindy Prache of Lope De Vega, Northern Samar, the community daycare center has done wonders for her daughter, Zia. “Zia can now recognize letters and has also started to draw and scribble,” she says. “I complement what she learns at the daycare center with additional learning exercises at home. I am very satisfied with how her teachers conduct lessons, and I am very grateful to them because I can see that they are doing their best to prepare my daughter and her classmates for elementary education.”
Unfortunately, not all day-care age schoolchildren are learning in centres. In the Philippines, many children are not participating in early learning. Around 78 per cent of 3- to 4-year-olds are not attending early learning programs. In the Bangsamoro Region, 90 per cent of children do not have access to Early Childhood Education. According to the ECCD Information System, 3,658 barangays are still without any early learning facilities such as Child Development Centers, National CDCs, Supervised Neighborhood Playgroups as of August 2019.
“Children have the right to quality pre-primary education, which is the foundation of a child’s journey. Every stage of education that follows relies on its success. If we fail to provide quality early childhood education, we limit the future prospects of individual children, as well as the country’s human capital needed to reduce inequalities and promote peaceful, prosperous societies,” Psyche Vetta Olayvar UNICEF’s ECD Specialist says.
Empowering and enhancing the capacity of daycare teachers is just one aspect of improving early childhood education in the Philippines. Zia’s teachers, Marivic Sardeña and Angie Catunhay, are part of the Child Development Workers (CDWs) in Samar who are benefiting from competency-based capacity-building sessions established by UNICEF in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies Foundation, Inc. (UPCWSFI), the Provincial Government of Northern Samar, the Municipal Government of Lope de Vega, and Northwest Samar State University (NWSSU). Marivic serves as Angie’s mentor in this program.
In partnership with the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Council, UPCWSFI, and local educational institutions, UNICEF is modeling a system for competency-based professional development, retention, compensation, and hiring of CDWs in 11 municipalities and 2 cities.* The system started with self-assessments of competencies of select CDWs, and local government units (LGUs) have supported this initiative by funding the competency enhancement of more than half of their CDWs.
“I really appreciate Angie’s openness to learning, and I can say that she has definitely improved,” Marivic remarks. Meanwhile, Angie is thankful: “I look forward to learning more strategies to keep children engaged and to optimize their learning based on their interests.”
Despite the dedication and hard work of CDWs, most of them lack job security. According to data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), only 11 per cent of CDWs nationwide hold permanent positions. Considering the crucial role CDWs play in facilitating a smooth transition from early learning and development to formal education, this issue hampers the sustainable learning and development of young children.
“Replacing CDWs after local elections has always been the norm. This practice is very counterproductive because it ultimately wastes years of experience and training. The most affected are the children, as it compromises the quality of learning. There should be a resolution to make CDWs permanent,” Marivic says. “In addition to job security, we also need support from the barangay and the local government units to improve our learning centers, allocate more budget for instructional materials, so that we won’t have to use our meager honorarium, and undergo further upskilling.”
Upskilling is a collective goal for CDWs. Over 80 kilometers away in Pagsanghan, Samar, Aileen Licame, who was among the first CDWs capacitated by UNICEF, UPCWSFI, and NWSSU, is now sharing everything that she learned with as many CDWs as possible. As the ECCD focal person of Pagsanghan, she continues to mentor fellow CDWs in their municipality and has also been tapped by other LGUs as a resource person for PEIRIDDDEC – prevention, early identification, referral and intervention of delays, disorders, and disabilities in early childhood.
“I have been motivated by UNICEF’s support, and I am happy that I am able to share what I have learned with fellow CDWs. I am even happier to see improvements in the performances of CDWs here in Pagsanghan,” Aileen says. “I just hope that efforts to strengthen the retention of CDWs and allocate more budget for ECCD will yield positive results so that more young children will be given quality foundational education.”
While Marivic, Angie, and Aileen share the same sentiments on the tenure of CDWs, Claudette Cabinalan, the Municipal Social Work and Development Officer of Tarangnan, Samar, is doing her part to ensure that the CDWs under her supervision receive the right support.
“Aside from the yearly budget for enhancing their capacities, we have also crafted and submitted a three-year plan that includes an advocacy strategy aimed at educating our community members on the importance of ECCD,” Claudette shares. “Our municipality has also recently passed an ordinance on the adoption of the national system of the ECCD program. We have also established an association for CDWs and are now formulating bylaws related to their benefits, privileges, and tenure. So far, our mayor has been supportive of this initiative. Our goal now is to put it into writing and ensure its passage as another ordinance by early next year.”
Ensuring comprehensive support for CDWs directly contributes to better learning outcomes for children. With improved and sustained foundational and developmental skills, literacy and numeracy proficiencies are most likely to increase. In parallel, it is high time ECCD is viewed as a crucial step towards holistic and effective learning. This is something that Cindy supports as a parent who has witnessed how daycare has tremendously helped her daughter, Zia.
“I really hope more parents bring their young children to daycare centers because it’s very important for children to be well prepared before entering elementary school. The children are the ones who bear the consequences when they lack essential foundational skills,” she says.
###
*Beyond Samar, UNICEF’s program also covers Zamboanga del Norte as well as the cities of Valenzuela and Cagayan de Oro. The LGUs in these areas have adopted technical assistance plans based on the self-assessment component of CDW competencies from the program. The budget allocations for these plans are guaranteed through municipal executive orders and other directives. Monthly handholding sessions have already begun in at least half of the 13 LGUs, focusing on the competency tasks rated by most CDWs as beginner level or areas where they require assistance. Guided by this framework, partners from academe have collaborated closely and continue to be engaged in designing and conducting municipal or cluster-level trainings.
