06 Nov 2019

Palapye Administration Authority (PAA) has rolled out the Early Moment Matters (EMM) campaign to all its Day care Centre managers in a bid to increase awareness on the importance of early childhood development.

Speaking at a one day workshop organised by the Department of Social and Community Development (S&CD) through Home Economics Division, principal home economics officer  for Central District, Ms Itumelang  Lebani said the government had responded to EMM, after realising that children developed well when parented with love, nourished and cared for in safe and stimulating environment. The Early Childhood Development (ECD) is inclusive of the cognitive, motor, social, emotional and behavioural skills which she said children need to reach their potential and be more resilient.

The EMM programme gives S&CD the responsibility to supervise and monitor Day Care Centres to ascertain adherence towards Early Childhood Care and Education policy, licensing Early Childhood Programme from Baby-Care to Preschool, as well as provision of technical support. 

Ms Lebani said according to research, brain development was optimal during the three years of life, being the foundation of a child’s future. She said that could be achieved through good health and nutrition, early stimulation and child protection noting that this called for coordination of early childhood development services in Botswana.

She noted that in 2014, access to ECD in Botswana was very low at 22 per cent, showing a limitation in accessibility care and learning services thereby impacting negatively on laying the right foundation for Botswana’s child.

She said many factors could impact on ECD, like socio-economic environments like housing, income, employment and education, biological factors like gender, general health, mental health, health practices and early environments and experiences such as child attachment, parenting styles, social networks.

Ms Lebani said young children could be affected by many social economic and environmental factors both in positive and negative ways, as they were vulnerable.

She said in some cases most children from disadvantaged families that were the least likely to have access to essential health and nutrition services missed out on vital components of Early Childhood Development.

Ms Lebani said though the ECD framework marked a new path for comprehensive interventions, the government had yet to complete the development of an implementation approach that aligned all stakeholders to a common vision, goals, priorities, resource mechanism and evaluation model.

The introduction of reception classes in government primary schools she said had been well received in most areas, but resource constraints limited the ability for further expansions. ends