Comparative & International Education Society: Gaining Educational Equity Around the World Teachers...

Comparative & International Education Society: Gaining Educational Equity Around the WorldTeachers College, Columbia University

Edwin Philip J. Horca Ph.D.

March 17 – 21, 2008

Integrating Health and Nutrition in ECD

Outline of Presentation

• The Face of the Filipino Children Today

• Working within the Child 21 Framework

• Integrating Health & Nutrition in ECD Programming

• Building from What We Have• Crafting Effective ECD Programs• Enhancing the Transition Process

The Face of the Filipino Children Today

• 88.7 M Filipinos (2007 projection, NSO)

• 14th rank in world population

• 108.5 M by 2015

• 3.6 fertility rate

• 2.36 population growth rate

The Philippines’ very own symbolic six billionth baby of the world,baby Lorrize marks a milestone in history and serves to remind one and all about the intricate interrelationship between population,development, resources and the quality of human life on earth.


Children comprise a big percentage of the population:

34.6 M are children below 18 years old

0-6 years of age account for 17.5% of the total population

An estimated 13.5 M 0-6 years old in the country

6.5 M 3-5 years old in the countryCWC, 2007


Out of 100 Children born each year in the Philippines,

8 will likely die before their 5th birthday,

30 will suffer from malnutrition in their first five years of life,

26 will not be immunized against the basic childhood diseases,

19 will lack access to safe drinking water,

10 suffer from physical and mental disability or developmental delay

67 of the 3-4 year olds are not able to experience early childhood stimulation,

40 five year olds are not able to enter preschool and

17 will never go to school.

CWC, 2007


4 Core Threats to the Filipino Children:

Health Nutrition Education Protection

The problems are closely linked and indicate an urgent need for an intensive and integrated effort to ensure the optimum development of the child.

Working within the Child 21 Framework

Our vision is that by 2025, every Filipino child will be,

Born healthy and well, with an inherent right to life, endowed with human dignity;Happy, loved, and nurtured by a strong, stable and god-loving family;Living in a peaceful, progressive, gender-fair, and child-friendly society;Growing safe in a healthy environment and ecology;Free and protected by a responsive and enabling government;Reaching her (his) full potential with the right opportunities and accessible resources;Imbued with Filipino values steeped in her (his) indigenous cultural heritage.Assertive of her (his) rights as well as those of others;Actively participating in decision-making and governance, in harmony and in solidarity with others, in sustaining the Filipino nation.

The Philippine National Strategic Framework for Plan Development for Children or CHILD 21 is a strategic framework for planning programs and interventions that promote and safeguard the rights of Filipino children. It paints in broad strokes a vision for the quality of life of Filipino children in 2025 and a roadmap to achieve the vision.

http://www.cwc.gov.ph/documents/Child21.pdf

Working within the Child 21 Framework

Legal Basis for ECCD• RA 8980: Early

Childhood Care & Development Act

• “An Act Promulgating a Comprehensive Policy and a National System for ECCD”

Integrating Health & Nutrition in ECD A. The Compelling Case for ECCE

• Early childhood sets the foundations for life. Early childhood programs are important,

– first, to guarantee the rights of young children, enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child now ratified by 192 countries.

– Second, early childhood is a highly sensitive period marked by rapid transformations in physical, cognitive, social and emotional development.

Strong Foundations, 2007

• Under nutrition, deprivation of care and poor treatment are particularly damaging to young children, with repercussions often felt into the adult years.

• Accessibility to key environmental factors and nurturing experiences during early years have been shown to be significantly correlated to psychological and biomedical outcomes in later life (Hayden, 2006)

Integrating Health & Nutrition in ECD A. The Compelling Case for ECCE

• Addressing health and nutrition problems in pre-school children is important for two reasons:– First, these children account for more than 50% of

the global gap in mortality between the poorest and richest quintiles of the world’s population

– Second, they bear 30% of the total burden of disease in poor countries. Of the 10.5 million children that died in 1999, 99% were from developing countries and of these 36% were in Asia and 33% in Africa.

Integrating Health & Nutrition in ECD B. Impact of Health & Nutrition

Health & Nutrition in Pre-school Children

Eminently treatable and preventable conditions, such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles and malnutrition are leading killers of children. (Jukes, 2006)

Health & Nutrition in Pre-school Children

Common condition of poor health and nutrition can affect education in a number of ways:

– First, children’s health and nutrition has an impact on their access to school.

– Second, children’s “school readiness” can be affected by their health and nutrition.

Integrating Health & Nutrition in ECD C. Impact on Access & School Readiness

In the Philippines, education indicators reveal:

33% GER in ECCD

12.5% drop out by Grade One

3.2% drop out by Grade Two

7.36% drop out rate for Elementary level


EFA, 2006 ; Dep Ed BEIS, 2007

ECCD and the Child’s Staying Power

Children who experience early child care and developmentare most likely to complete ten years of schooling.

…the main problem the child encounters is in the move from grade 1 to grade 2: only about 86% of grade 1 entrants are

able to move on to grade two the following year...

Meeting the Basic Learning Needs of Young Filipino Children.

A Study on Public Investment in Early Childhood Education by Ruperto P.Alonzo and Feny de los Angeles-Bautista

in collaboration with Dr. Robert Myers


128

96

92

64

26

73

551850

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007

SLP

KBA

DCC

Brgy. BF

77,567(Total Population)

ECCD and the Child’s Staying Power

The strong determinants of school readiness are as follows:

• type of place- whether rural or urban;• marginalization status; • sex of child; • exposure to early childhood education; • health status; • parents’ knowledge, attitude and practice on

children’s cognitive development; • parents’ practices in stimulating children’s

school readiness; and • access to learning materials.

School Readiness Study, 2003


• Children’s 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 children’s growth and development has to be a sine qua non in any intervention for the young. The child’s biological disposition interacts with all his/her environmental forces to shape the nature of his/her development.

School Readiness Study, 2003


Building from What We HaveLearning from our SHN Program

• 50% of school-age children are anemic;

• two out of ten school children are iodine deficient;

• four out of 100 preschoolers have night blindness and

• 17 school children go blind every day due to vitamin A deficiency;

• majority of the school children suffer from dental caries (84.3%);

• intestinal parasitism (75%); • malnutrition (44.9%); and • various kinds of infections of the

ear (17.2%) and skin (53%)

Building from What We HaveLearning from our SHN Program

School Health and Nutrition Improved health and nutrition status of school aged children leading to improved school performance

Program Components

Health & Nutrition Services – mass deworming, Iron supplementation, vitamin A, vision & hearing screening Health & Nutrition Education – health talks, film/video showing School Environment Improvements – Sanitary toilets, water supply, hand washing facilitiesCommunity Support Systems – PTCA, Barangay Council, SHN fairs, LCPC

A Case for SHN

62.7

49.756.1

48.9

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

2000 2001 2002 2003

After three years of implementing school-based deworming what results did we achieve?

Pampalusog Bata Project


School-based deworming is not THE only answer to control parasitism infection among school-aged children!

47.942.9

30.5

17.8

0

10

20

30

40

50

2004 2005 2006 2007


Aksyon 2: Tamang Pangangalaga sa KalusuganAksyon 3: Malinis at Masustansyang PagkainAksyon 4: Gawaing Pamayanan para sa Kontrol ng Worm Infection

Aksyon 1: Gawaing kalusugan sa eskwelahan


Aksyon 5: Malinis na Tubig

Aksyon 6: Malinis na KapaligiranAksyon 7: Responsableng Pagmamagulang

Did it improve School Performance?

Masville Elementary School marked a

72.78 (Nearing Mastery) score in the National Reading Test.

72.78

30.645.9

0

20

40

60

80

2006-2007

Grade Three Reading TestMean Percentage Score

MES

SSII

PESC

Did it improve School Performance?

The National Achievement Test Mean Percentage Score for the National Capital Region is

60.18. For the Parañaque Division the NAT mean percentage score is

53.02.

Lessons Learned

School-Community as one locus for learning and action.

Multi-pronged programming approach works - Health services - Behavior centered communication - Facilities improvement - Social and political environment

Community ownership & participation is key to sustainability

• Only 19% of children aged 4-6 years old are able to go to private or public pre-schools

• There are 32,787 day care centers accounting for 41,924 of all barangays in the country

• Only 3 out of 10 schools/NGOs offer training or any form of parenting education

• Average teacher/caregiver : child ratio from is 1:45 in government assisted centers/ pre schools

Crafting Effective Programs

ECD Increased proportion of 6 year olds entering elementary school and succeeding to Grade 2

Support to Day Care Services

Supervised Neighborhood Services/KapitBahay-Aralan

Summer Learning Program

Parent Education

ESSS Programming

Crafting Effective Programs

Stepping Up to School Success (36 to 60 months)

• Expand ECD access by supporting alternatives to center-based programs (e.g., KapitBahay Aralan or neighborhood learning model)

• Build capacity of day care workers/preschool teachers and support public day care centers/public preschools in meeting quality ECD standards

• Integrate health content and services into early learning opportunities

• Sustain parent education on positive care & development of young children

Stepping Forward in School (6 to 8 years old)

• Summer learning program for prospective first grade entrants with no prior ECD exposure

• School welcome days and parent education initiatives

• School health & nutrition interventions

• Teacher training and promotion of developmentally appropriate teaching-learning approaches for early grades

• Basa para sa Bata (Reading for Children) program

Moving Forward: Enhancing the Transition Process

• Health promoting early childhood programs and settings:– Facilitate protective factors against the

development of psychosocial, mental and biomedical health problems.

– Sustained through participatory, multi-sectoral and community based processesEarly Childhood Services as Health Promoting Settings, Hayden 2006


• Learning from the Health Sector: Systematically measuring ‘Survival’ of Year One in Primary School– The health sector has long measured

child survival using two key points in time: year one (Infant mortality rate) and year five (child mortality rate).


• Track “rate of survival” within basic education cycles– In addition to having data on

completion & achievement rates at the end of primary, there would be an intermediary indicator of early primary survival.

Moving Forward:Improving the Transition Process

128

96

92

64

26

73

551850

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

2004-2005 2005-2006 2006-2007

SLP

KBA

DCC

Brgy. BF

77,567(Total Population)

Moving Forward:Enhancing the Transition Process

• Continuity of Developmentally Appropriate Practice– Using a “Transition” framework

deliberately links ECD and early primary school

– Child-friendly schools promote holistic approaches that address the child’s overall development and learning as well as their health and safety.

Comparative & International Education Society: Gaining Educational Equity Around the World Teachers...

Documents

Transcript of Comparative & International Education Society: Gaining Educational Equity Around the World Teachers...