ECC prioritises quality early childhood services for new academic year

The Early Childhood Commission (ECC) will continue to prioritise the delivery of quality early-childhood programmes and services in the 2026/27 academic year, as part of its ongoing commitment to Jamaica’s youngest citizens.

ECC Chair, Trisha Williams-Singh, told JIS News that priority will be placed on advancing the national Zero to Three Strategy, which focuses on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, a period widely recognised as critical to early development.

“We’re looking to integrate health, nutrition, stimulation, and social protection, child protection and early intervention, which will directly impact Sustainable Development Goal 4.0,” she outlined.

Williams-Singh noted that a key component of this strategy is the Brain Builder Centres, which were established in 2018.

“The Brain Builder Centres are free daycares provided by the Government of Jamaica… . I think we have 110 that have been established… and the aim was to ensure that there were two per constituency. So you want to take the children from their parents a little earlier to ensure that you’re getting proper stimulation and proper nutrition,” the chair explained.

She emphasised that the centres help prepare children for formal learning by providing a strong foundation during their early developmental years.

“From birth up, we want [them] to have that healthy brain. We want [them] to love going into that learning environment. We want [them] to think critically… and that’s what we’re building from birth,” Williams-Singh outlined.

She noted that the commission will also place emphasis on the revised early-childhood curriculum, which was recently rolled out across the sector.

The ECC has been conducting training sessions for early-childhood practitioners (ECPs) to strengthen their capacity to effectively deliver the revised curriculum in early-childhood institutions.

Williams-Singh said the new curriculum features a renewed focus on boys’ education, and science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM).

She also noted that the ECC will be strengthening its quality assurance and monitoring framework for early-childhood institutions (ECIs).

“We want to strengthen monitoring the protocols for the Brain Builder Centres and the early-childhood setting… and we also want to put emphasis on the revised classroom observation tool that we use, which incorporates alignment with the revised inspection instrument,” Williams-Singh outlined.

The ECC recently launched the Early Childhood Care and Education Progress Assessment Tool for Transformation (ECCE PATT), a structured self-assessment instrument developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to help countries evaluate and strengthen their early-childhood-education systems.

Williams-Singh noted that the review is progressing well and that the findings of the assessment are expected to be presented soon.

She further indicated that a comprehensive assessment of compliance among early-childhood institutions will be captured in the Assessment of ECIs 2026 Report, which is expected to be released before December this year.

- JIS

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