How the Philippine LLCSD can alleviate poverty through quality early childhood program

The Regional Training Workshop on Early Childhood Policy Review will take place in Bangkok, Thailand next week on February 6 to 8. Its objective is in line with the Philippine LLCSD (Lifelong Learning Center for Sustainable Development) Phase 1 projection of focusing on establishing Pagsasarili Preschools in public schools and in local government units.

"Expanding and improving Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged" is the first of the six goals of the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All (EFA) that was agreed upon in 2000 when the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2000-2015 was started.

Asian babies born in 2000 will be 7 years old by now. How can we raise hopes that by 2015 when they turn 15 years old, they would have been trained in technical high school that will help them get employed as apprentices? Let’s hope that within the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, they will be able to sustain education since in most public schools, 40% drop out between Grade 1 to 3, adding to the number of adult illiterates.

UNESCO member states clamor for the institutionalization of ECE

Since 1986, when I sat at the UNESCO Executive Board in Paris, all of its Member States have clamored for the institutionalization of ECE in the official ladder of education, especially in developing countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia. The survival and development of young children depends upon the quality of household care; access by families to quality services; and, the policies and resources to support these.

Having quality national policies is the major step for ensuring the provision of good quality early childhood programs, as well as healthy development of young children. It is the Governments through relevant ministries that have the primary responsibility of formulating Early Childhood policies to mobilize support and establish programs, which are suitable for children under school-age.

ASEAN countries have limited resources to invest in ECCE

Let us see the situation in Asia.

Drawing on the UNDP Human Development Report 1997, Thailand and Malaysia rank highest in the Human Poverty Index of Women and Children among the seven Southeast Asian countries, 59th and 60th out of 175 countries assessed. The Philippines and Indonesia follow (98th and 99th), then Vietnam (121st), with Laos and Cambodia last (136th and 135th). Based on the Child Survival and Development Index the countries also rank in the same order.

Adult illiteracy is below 10% in Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam but above 40% in Laos and Cambodia. About 90% of children complete fifth grade in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, but only 50% in Cambodia and 53% in Laos. Female illiteracy is about double the male rate in all these countries, except Thailand.

Thailand and Malaysia rank highest with regard to child survival and development and lowest in Laos and Cambodia. The pattern is the same for social expenditures as a portion of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), highest in Thailand and Malaysia, but lowest in Cambodia and Laos. Infant mortality rates fell in all these countries during the last two decades of the 20th century. For example, the rates fell in Malaysia from 24 per thousand live births in 1989 to 7.9 in 2000, while in Indonesia from 63 to 46 between 1990 and 1999, though rural/urban disparities remain in both of these countries.

All these countries have limited resources to invest in ECCE and major social problems that are in urgent need of attention.

The social landscape of families

The changes in the landscape of families in these countries are similar to those observed in the more industrialized countries. The countries are aging. Families are getting smaller as fertility rates decline, and there are changes in household and family structure. Gender roles are also changing and a growing proportion of women are now in the paid labor force.

The percentage of the population aged 60 and older in Malaysia is expected to reach 7.3% by 2010 and 9.5% by 2020. Special initiatives are planned in response to this development including the establishment of health centers providing geriatric care throughout the country. The percentage of those 65 and older in Indonesia almost doubled between 1971 and 1999, from 2.5 to 4.7%. The elderly are expected to increase their share of the population in the Philippines and Thailand as well.

Decline in extended families and birth rate

The extended families, which were once the core of communities and villages, have been increasingly fragmented by death, natural disasters, forced population movements, repatriation, displacement, and separation. Meantime, nuclear families are rising in numbers and are becoming, increasingly, the dominant family type. Nonetheless, extended families remain important especially in some countries. For example, in Indonesia, 83% of families live in rural areas and 20% of these are extended families. There is also growing awareness of the problems of employed parents, especially mothers, in reconciling work and family life, as dual-earner families rise in numbers, too.

Family size began to decline in the 1980s and has continued over the last two and a half decades. Half a century ago, women were expected to be married by age 16 while the average age for marriage now is 22 and even older for urban, educated professional women in the Philippines. The average birth rate is 2.8 in Indonesia, 3.7 in the Philippines, 4.0 in Cambodia and 5.4 in Laos, the highest rate in the region. For comparison, the average total fertility rate in the OECD countries is 1.8, 1.5 in the European Union countries, and 2 in the United States of America.

Child and family policies

Although women are still expected to have primary responsibility for domestic work, childcare and child rearing, a rising number are in the paid labor force, as well. In 1998, the female labor force participation rate in Indonesia was 38% and 49.7% in the Philippines in 2000 (as compared with about 53% in the EU and 65% in the G-7 countries).

All these ASEAN countries stress the traditional role of the family in rearing children. Improvement in the status and role of women is necessary towards enhancing the situation of children. Legislative initiatives including women, child and family-related laws enacted in several of these countries, are often influenced by the 1990 World Summit on Children and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Significant changes due to the impact of economic development, demographic, social, and cultural changes have brought about important positive results, such as improved health, reduced income poverty, extended and enhanced education, as well as reduced gender inequities.

Most of the ASEAN countries have enacted laws concerning the protection of women’s and children’s legal rights, especially with regard to protection against physical and sexual abuse and exploitation.

Making Montessori affordable

I had been teaching grade school and high school students in Saigon, Vietnam (1965-66) and later worked with a Swiss Montessori preschool teacher in San Lorenzo Village in Makati, when I was asked by Operation Brotherhood Internationale to become its project manager for its preschool program during the relocation of 3,000 poor families from Intramuros to Sapang Palay.

This outreach program for the poor prompted Italian Ambassador Rubino and Ambassador Solera to give me two Montessori Training Scholarships both for pre-school (in Perugia, Italy) and Grade School courses (in Bergamo, Italy). Later, I specialized in Montessori Language Arts in London, England.

The Operation Brotherhood Montessori Center was established in rented mansions between 1966 to 1970. A non-stock, non-profit institution, it is self-sustained with tuition fees. It is now the largest Montessori school in the world with over 4,500 students from toddler’s school, preschool, grade school, high school and Montessori Teacher Training College in Greenhills, Sta. Ana, Las Pinas, and Angeles, Pampanga.

To make the public understand the Montessori system better, I produced, scripted and hosted the highly rated television programs: Montessori for the Home (1970-72) and Montessori for Everyone (1972-73) for ABS-CBN, Channel 2. Since I spoke in English simultaneously translating the message into Filipino, I reached more of the B and C class audiences and was rated among the top 17 of 400 weekly shows.

In 1983, the Montessori system was made affordable in partnership with local government and established a post literacy course for village mothers in 17 haciendas in Negros Oriental. At present, aside from the 7 self-sustaining Pagsasarili schools in Metro Manila, there are 7 in the World Heritage Site of the Ifugao Rice Terraces and 30 in Lipa, Batangas (38 preschools will be set up by SY 2007-2008). The Pagsasarili system is also used in the EFA DAKAR pilot public school project for the Angeles Elementary School in Pulung Bulu, Angeles City and Concepcion South Elementary School in Tarlac. (A total of 82 self-sufficient Pagsasarili Preschools will have been set up by next school year.)

Promoting ECE in UNESCO Paris and Asia Pacific, and UN CRC

As early as 1986 as an Executive Board (EB) Member, I held demonstrations at the UNESCO Paris headquarters of two literacy community projects for both village mothers and their preschool children. This Operation Brotherhood Montessori Pagsasarili Literacy Twin Project won the UNESCO International Literacy Award in New Delhi, India in 1993.

In 1987 after my stint in the EB, I became one of the founding members of the Coordinating Council for Early Childhood Education of the Philippines (CONCEP, Inc) organized by then Secretary of Education Dr. Lourdes Quisumbing. The group worked for 20 years to legislate the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Law.

Later, the 1990 Congressional Commission on Educational Reform (EDCOM) Survey of Philippine schools from Early Childhood programs, Basic Education, up to Tertiary Education appointed me as the Early Childhood Education Technical Adviser for School Reform. The Survey concluded that Education in the country is below par causing poverty. Within this year, the Education for All (EFA) was declared and the National Literacy Coordinating Council was founded and chose me as one of the members of the Technical Working Group to annually promote literacy projects in the country.

Meantime, I was also appointed as one of the Philippine delegates to the Geneva Convention for the Rights of the Child (UNRC) in 1995 where I championed the rights of the child to quality education at home and in school as the UNCRC Popularization Committee Chair, after which, I became a member of the Council for the Welfare of Children, which was established to implement the UNCRC program for the Philippines.

When appointed as Secretary-General of the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines in 2001, I continued the advocacy of the century-old system of education which harnesses the natural capacity of man to become self-sufficient.

Looking forward to more self-sustaining Filipinos

This summer, The Philippine LLCSD will train Pagsasarili teachers for ten public schools, as well as preschools of DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs), DOT (Department of Tourism), DA (Department of Agriculture) and Malacañang. With a budget of P200,000, which each department will take from their GAD (Gender Advocacy and Development) budget, this will include training of two teachers, one set of Pagsasarili materials, as well as monitoring and supervision of school management.

In the past 20 years, the Pagsasarili preschools have transformed poor children and their teachers into "new children" and "new teachers" who love order and work, easily obey and make friends, are confident and independent. It will be the foundation of the National Plan of Action of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to break the barrier of mendicancy and make each Filipino believe he or she can be self-sufficient.

(For more information or reaction, please e-mail at exec@obmontessori.edu.ph or pssoliven@yahoo.com)