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Monday, May 08, 2006
Editorial: More than a living
Othergovernment employees are just sitting the whole day in their offices doing nothing, yet they have very high wages, but why is that Day Care Workers who are working like dogs are paid real low...”
On Dec. 9, 2003, a daughter posted in a www.gov.ph forum her appeal for government to raise the honorarium of her mother. According to the Cebu resident, her mother received “a very low honorarium” and had no health benefits despite working in a day care center for 17 years.
Last April 28, the same call to alleviate salary and benefits was raised during the 1st Regional Day Care Workers Congress.
According to Jujemay G. Awit’s account in Sun.Star Cebu, Rep. Antonio Cuenco told the more than 1,500 day care workers at the New Cebu Coliseum that he will file a bill to increase the usual monthly salary of P500 to P5,000.
“Let’s just hope it will materialize,” Jobelyn Mangilimutan told Sun. Star Cebu.
The Aloguinsan worker, with a service record of 13 years, still receives only P1,000 monthly.
Behind the times
Enacted in 1987, Republic Act 6972, or “The Barangay Level Total Development and Protection of Children Act,” appropriates at least P500 monthly allowance for barangay day care workers. It also identifies the responsibility of local governments to support day care centers.
In practice, day care services require more than government funding to be sustained. Inadequacy of workers’ honoraria, insufficiency of facilities and materials, absence or lack of training opportunities for day care workers, and lack of parental and community involvement hobble the preschool formation that should be accessible to children of working parents with less financial resources.
Education specialists have identified the ages from birth to six years of age as the peak of a child’s precocity in learning and forming of values. With life-long habits hardwired at this stage, preschool education is a premium, and priced accordingly, at private institutions and in developed countries.
Day care participation has been traced as an inhibiting factor in school delinquency. Public school students exhibit also faster and better comprehension with day care exposure.
Several initiatives have been undertaken to improve the quality of day care services.
Parents, too
For nearly two decades, the public and private sectors have been implementing the Early Child Development (ECD) Project, funded by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. This initiative “converges” early childhood care with other social services like education, health and psychosocial development.
According to www.cwc.gov.ph, the packages of services respond to the “life cycle needs of children:” rural health midwives assist expectant mothers and infants of less than one year; home and neighborhood-based Child Development Workers for children in the early formative years (one to two years) and their parents; day care workers for children in pre-school years (three to five years) and their parents; and home-based Family Day Care Provider/Child Care Worker for infants up to three years and whose mothers are working full-time.
ECD includes a Parents Effectiveness Service that gives parents and caregivers a rights-based training emphasizing existing child protection laws, responsible parenthood, manage-ment of younger and older children, husband-wife relationships, prevention of child abuse, and other issues on health care and parenting.
ECD also has a human resource development component to professionalize day care workers. Improvements in the quality of service hinge on charting a clear and secure “career path” for day care workers.
Another source of learning is the Canadian International Development Agency’s Private Enterprise Accelerated Resource Linkages (Pearl) initiative that “aims to provide a model for better operation of the Philippines’ 2,000 day care centers.”
According to www.pearl2.net, parent volunteers are trained to assist teachers and workers in making day care centers more attractive and educational for preschoolers.
By educating the parents first, the Pearl project hopes to draw more than the 30 percent of children aged three to five years now attending day care. Most of the targeted group were found to be “out on the streets all day.”
To put children always first, day care workers need all the help they can get from parents, local governments and the private sector.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 8, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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