[아시아 취학전 교육, 필리핀] 관련법 ‘완벽’ 불구 예산·인력 ‘태부족’

Kindergarten – Philippine style Alin Ferrer-Garganera There are about 11.5 million Filipino children aged 0-4 years. This represents 10.7% of the total Philippine population. This means there is both a great challenge and opportunity for the Philippine educational system, as this age range represents the pre-school stage. This pre-school stage is very important, as various studies have pointed out, that this period in a child offers the greatest growth and development, including physical, mental and emotional. Brain development has been proven to be fastest in this 0-4 year age. It is also widely accepted that the child forms the basic foundations of his identity, world perspective and moral beliefs. It is therefore important that all parents, teachers and caregivers are given the right guidance on how to teach and form the minds and behaviors of pre-school children. Philippine government has accepted this big responsibility and has passed several laws to ensure that pre-school is given adequate attention and government support. As early as 1991, the country already crafted an ”Education For All” (EFA) plan which is based on the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) framework. The plan was in response to UNESCO’s international call for EFA which is to be achieved by 2015. By 2000, Republic Act (RA) 8980 was passed and ECCD was made a national law, which emphasized the role of local governments in supporting a National System for ECCD. This law affirmed the role of parents as the child’s “primary caregiver and first teachers”. In 2011, RA 10157 was enacted as national law and this was called “The Kindergarten Education Law”. This made kindergarten compulsory and mandatory entry stage to basic education. The spirit of the law was to give “equal opportunities for all children to avail of accessible kindergarten education”. This law made kindergarten a requirement before a child can enter Grade 1 of the formal education system, so that children are more ready to experience big school learning. In 2013, the Philippines passed RA 10410 or the “Early Years Act”, this time establishing  that age 0-8 as the “first crucial stage of educational development.” This law established and strengthened the “early childhood care and development” (ECCD) Council to design and implement community-based and family-level programs for children, including education, nutrition, values formation. Kindergarten is provided by government and private sector. Government-run kindergarten are free, and is almost available in all major cities, big towns and provincial capitals. These kindergarten are part of the public school system which is annually supported by the government with budgets. Also, most books, learning materials and uniforms are free. If the city or local government has enough funds, they are also able to provide food and nutrition services. However, this is not true for all the Philippines. In fact, some of the poorer areas or far-away islands are not able to provide kindergarten services at all. Then there is the private school kindergarten. These are more expensive, and only the rich families are able to send their children here. The learning materials and curriculum here are state-of-the-art, with a very low student-teacher ratio. These private-run schools do not depend on government support, but rely on the payment of their clients. They offer better services and equipment, and are more responsive to the needs of the children. Some kindergarten even offer specialized services for foreigners based in the Philippines, to prepare their children for international school institutions. The Philippine government has given high attention for the needs of children to benefit from kindergarten. There are enough policies and laws. However, the financial, infrastructure and human resources are not enough to respond to the huge needs of the growing population of Filipinos. There are still a lot of areas to improve the delivery of kindergarten education in the Philippines. Alin Ferrer-Garganera 기자, 라디오 방송 앵커

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