$27 Million for Initiatives to Improve Children’s Learning Environment

As the Government continues its work to improve the learning environment for the nation’s children, $27 million will be expended this fiscal year towards this objective.

The activities will be carried out under the Promoting Quality Education and Advancing the Reality of a Child Friendly Environment project, for which the funds have been provided in the 2014/15 Estimates of Expenditure, now being reviewed by the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives.

The project seeks to provide a safe and secure physical environment that is conducive to learning through a parent support system; and to ensure the quality delivery of the Development Health and Welfare Programme, as well as other Student Support Services, through capacity building.

It also aims to strengthen and expand the curriculum by offering the development and implementation of a civics programme; and to promote access and equity by providing and delivering a curriculum that will empower learners who have moderate to severe intellectual disabilities.

Up to March this year, 2,472 early childhood practitioners have been trained in Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) delivery; and 19 persons completed the training for Level 1, and 15 attained performance standard in the Special Education School leaders and teachers training in language and literacy development of deaf students.

In addition, a draft Special Education Curriculum developed for three disciplines (Language and Communication, Mathematics, Life Skills) has been submitted to the Ministry of Education (MOE) along with Draft Pilot Protocol and Interim Reports; five Early Childhood Life Skills Charts have been developed; and a finalised copy of the Draft Guidance and Counseling Policy has been submitted to the Guidance and Counseling Unit.

For this fiscal year, it is intended that sensitisation seminars for the National Guidance and Counseling Policy will be conducted; manuals for the Delivery of Psychosocial Services will be reproduced; and public consultations to finalise National Safe Schools Policy will be conducted.

It is also intended that Training of Trainers (TOT) Workshop for the Piloting of School-wide Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support (SWPBIS) Framework will be conducted. Additionally, it is anticipated that a monitoring and evaluation framework for HFLE and other psychosocial programmes in the Ministry of Education, will be developed, with tools included for measuring behaviour change in students.

Other targets for this fiscal year are to: complete development of Curriculum for students with Moderate to Profound/Severe Disabilities; and develop and purchase indigenous interactive material to support the delivery of the Special Education curriculum for eight schools, 21 satellites and six Non-Governmental Organisations.

The project, which is slated to run form January, 2013 to December, 2016, is being implemented by the Ministry of Education, with funding from the United Nations International Children’s Educational Fund.