SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian reiterated his call for the passage of his proposed measure to improve the quality and delivery of early childhood care and development programs.

This was after the release of the Second Congressional Commission on Education’s report on the state of education in the country.

“Ang ECCD ang pundasyon sa edukasyon ng mga Kabataan. Gayunpaman, hindi natin naaabot ang marami sa mga kabataan at kulang na kulang tayo sa mga guro at pasilidad. Sa pagsugpo natin sa krisis ng edukasyon, mahalagang tiyakin nating mapapatatag din natin ang mga programa para sa ECCD,” said Gatchalian.

Gatchalian’s Basic Education and Early Childhood Education Alignment Act or Senate Bill No. 2029 seeks to align the ECCD curriculum with the basic education curriculum.

It also seeks to make local government units more accountable on the implementation of ECCD programs.

The EDCOM II’s report titled ‘Miseducation: The Failed System of Philippine Education’ enumerated different challenges hounding the country’s ECCD system.

The EDCOM II report also found that most daycare teachers and workers are aging and lack training in early childhood education.

While 52% of these daycare teachers and workers have a college degree and 17% have a high school diploma, only few of them have trained in ECCD.

Since 2005, there have only been 3,993 ECE graduates or about 80 annually from the 224 higher education institutions offering the program.