Government to Fund Two Day-Care Facilities in QEC 8

Director, Regional Services, Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Dr. Kasan Troupe, says the Government will be funding, fully, two day-care facilities located in Quality Education Circle (QEC) 8.

QEC 8 is made up of 15 schools in the two constituencies of St. Andrew West Central and St. Andrew Western.

During her address at the launch and Stakeholder Meeting for QEC 8, which was held at Duhaney Park Gospel Assembly in St. Andrew on Friday (May 4) under the theme ‘Creating Tomorrow Together’, Dr. Troupe said given the level of need by many parents in both constituencies, the Ministry made the decision to fund two day-care facilities.

This is being done under the Ministry’s ‘Zero-to-Three’ initiative, as day-care facilities offer the very first level of education to toddlers outside their homes.

“You would have heard about our Zero-to-Three initiative, our new model to support the day-care facilities in our communities. Two day-care facilities will be selected to be fully funded by the Government, so parents no longer will need to find the cost or to keep them at home without the necessary resources to develop their minds from early,” Dr. Troupe said.

Dr. Troupe said once these two facilities have been identified and discussion had with the various parties, they will be announced. Additionally, she said the Ministry is looking into helping more day-care institutions across the island.

“We want to make sure that the children are stimulated, so for every constituency, two facilities will be fully funded in the beginning. We hope when we evaluate the model, that we can roll it out to other institutions,” she said.

QEC structures were first introduced in 2009 under the aegis of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, where diverse groups of school administrators created a learning circle for professionals in education from different levels of the education system (early childhood, primary, secondary and tertiary) and within a particular constituency or geographic locale.

Through the QEC, educators and other stakeholders meet to share best practices, discuss challenges, propose solutions, assess progress made and celebrate achievements. The aim of a QEC is to mobilise wide-scale stakeholder participation, which includes political, community, school leadership and teachers and parents, to drive improvement in schools.
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