BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – COMING out of a national consultation held in November last year, a new Early Childhood Development Policy (ECD) has been reviewed and approved by Cabinet.

This was announced in the most recent Post-Cabinet briefing dated March 4.

According to the released communiqué, the new policy is the product of November’s consultation, which was attended by government officials, daycare centre supervisors, parents and other stakeholders in the education sector.

ECD Coordinator Vanta Walters said the objective was to develop a document that would guide future development in the nation’s early childhood policies and enable the creation of strategies which would improve the sector.

She revealed that an evaluation would be performed every three years to ensure the policy remains up-to-date and continues to operate effectively

The briefing further stated that the policy was created to respond to the need to improve the quality of and level of access to early childhood education in the Federation. It added that “as a critical component of the early childhood education policy, targets have been set to provide early education services to all working parents in all communities in St. Kitts.

“This, the government believes, will help break the cycle of poverty in poor families and poor communities. Under the new early childhood policy, support will be given to private providers of early childhood education so that they can expand their services and improve the quality of such services.”

The new policy, which will replace the existing 25-year-old one, has been given a 2009-2011 implementation schedule by the government.