Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) |01 December 2015

National Action Plan launched

Stakeholders gathered yesterday to witness the launch of the National Action Plan 2015-2016 for Early Childhood Care and Education and the signing of a memorandum of understanding in support of Early Childhood Development.

The Institute of Early Childhood Development (IECD) is the institution responsible for coordinating the development of the second National Action Plan. In total 13 projects have been identified and 10 already got sponsored.

The Minister for Education, Macsuzy Mondon, remarked in her opening address that “providing an early start for our children is a national responsibility”.

She noted that the National Action Plan 2015-2016 for Early Childhood Care and Education is the second medium-term plan which provides direction for the promotion of ECCE and brings together ECCE initiatives in the ministries of Education, Health, Social Affairs, Community Development and Sports, and IECD. The first plan 2013-2014 opened the door for sectors to cooperate and produce an action plan that would give momentum to the national agenda.

In this new plan 2015-2016, sectors were provided with opportunities to explore more thoroughly their own strategic plans and activities within their sectors and ministries, and align them with the ECCE vision of “a winning start in life for all children of Seychelles”.

“This plan builds on the achievements of the first plan and takes on the challenges with renewed vigour and an enhanced approach,” said Minister Mondon.

She further explained that there are two main features which characterise the National Action Plan 2015-2016: One is the results orientation approach and the other is the multi-sectoral collaboration.

“Under the guidance of IECD, excellent projects have been devised and are being implemented to enhance the development outcome of Seychellois children and raise parents’ awareness of that crucial stage in the development of their children,” she said.

“By launching the National Action Plan here today, we seek to reaffirm the government‘s commitment to improve access to and the quality of ECCE,” she added.

“At the heart of this commitment is a core belief that we can only build a caring and prosperous society by investing in the future of our children. Numerous international economic studies also document the high rate of return on investment in the early phase of our children’s development. The most important task that we should address collectively is how we ensure that the projects are successfully implemented, that there is evidence of their success and that they create an enabling policy environment for programmes and services which would have direct impact on the children and parents,” the minister continued.

“For this reason, today’s function is very timely and relevant as it is aligned with our government’s priorities in emphasising the significant role that ECCE can play in achieving the country’s shared goals for socio-economic advancement. We therefore need to recognise and actualise the potential of our greatest assets – our children,” Minister Mondon said.

The chairperson of the National Coordinating Committee for ECCE, Shirley Choppy, talked about initiatives to finance the National Action Plan.

“In Seychelles, there are a lot of projects targeting early childhood care and education being implemented. Experience from the previous National Plan on ECCE has shown that there was a lack of financial resources to implement the projects. When developing the medium-term plan this year, the National Coordinating Committee with representatives of all ECCE sectors under the leadership of IECD, discussed at length on the possibilities of securing some additional funds to finance this new plan. 13 projects were identified and we visited ten companies and had individual meetings with them explaining our projects. 10 projects out of 13 received sponsorship and we are grateful to all these companies,” Mrs Choppy said.

Various memoranda of understanding were also signed yesterday by the companies who are sponsoring these projects. The sponsorship falls under the CSR scheme initiated by the Ministry of Finance and will be managed by IECD. The companies in question are Constance Lemuria Resort, the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority, Airtel, the Seychelles Trading Company (who is sponsoring 6 projects from the lot) and the Temooljee family.

Dr Andre Leste was the one coordinating the developmental stages of the medium-term National Plan and he gave an overview of the National Action Plan to all stakeholders.