The group members have expressed their commitment to take up the issue as their political agenda and sensitize the political leaders about the importance of ECD. The ECD program includes children below 8 years.[break]
“Children can´t make their voices heard through protests and strikes. The political leaders need to understand the ECD concept to guarantee the physical mental and social growth of every child in future,” said the CPN-UML leader Pradip Gyanwali.
He added that his party is prepared for any kind of support to ensure that every child across the country has access to the ECD program.
The government had earlier planned to set up 70,000 ECD centers across the country by 2014, however, only 32,500 centers have been established till date. Of the total, private sectors operate 5,000 centers.
Hishila Yami, a UCPN (Maoist) leader, Kamala Panta of Nepali Congress and Pampha Bhusal of the CPN-Maoist were among other members of the group who expressed their solidarity to the cause.
ECD program is considered the most important intervention in meeting the overall quality of the primary education system, said Agatha Thapa, founder of Seto Gurans, an organization that has been working in the same field since 1990.
Thapa mentioned that various researches at the international level has established that ECD is inevitable for providing easy access to education, ensuring child rights, enhancing enrolment rate, improving retention and promotion, and developing life and social adjustment skills. “Adequate investment at an early age is must for the development of intelligence, personality and social behavior of children,” she said.
Studies in various parts of the world have shown that pre-school education contributes not only to increasing enrolment, attendance and retention of children in primary school but also preparing children academically, said Debina Pradhananga, deputy director at the Department of Education.
Related story
Early Childhood Development classes now limited to two years
