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In March, 2011, Plan China launched site inspection to Hong Si Pu District and Yan Chi County with Women’s Federation and Education Bureau of the two areas. During the investigation, pre-school education is found to be seriously backward; enrollment rate is low; nutrition is poor due to the poor situation of children’s family; the kindergarten investment is limited; etc. For example, they found that only 5 kindergartens of Hong Si Pu District have been approved by education department, and all of these kindergartens are private kindergartens with poor conditions. They are short of qualified teachers, and the pre-school education quality cannot be guaranteed. The food and nutrition of pre-school children from poor families are consisted simply of instant noodles, rice, potatoes, simple noodles, which are lack of nutrition. On May 10th, 2011, the Signing Ceremony of Ningxia Early Childhood Care and Development Pilot Project launched cooperatively by Plan China and the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of The People’s Government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was held in the multifunctional hall of Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Representatives of counterparts attending the signing ceremony included Mr. Li Jie, Director of the Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Mark Leighton, Country Director of Plan China, departmental leaders of the Joint Steering Committee of Plan China’s project in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and fellow leaders of Wu Zhong Women’s Federation, Yan Chi County, Hong Si Pu District, and Long De County. Accordingly to the agreement, the ECCD pilot project will launch project activities in Hong Si Pu District (Nan Chuan Township and Da He Township) and Yan Chi County (Da Shui Keng Township) of Wu Zhong City for a year (till June 2012). These activities aim to improve the quality and accessibility of pre-school education for children from 0-6. These activities include creating and improving conditions of kindergartens, enhancing the participation and mobilization ability of community, launching parent-children activities, improving enrollment rate of pre-school education, and implementing training for teachers of kindergartens and affiliated kindergartens of primary schools. Plan China will invest 712,000RMB for the project. During the coming year, both parties will cooperate to make full use of their resource superiority, and they will supervise and promise the quality and successful implementation of the project, so as to promote, publicize and advocate the achievements of the project in Ningxia and at a higher level. Mark Leighton, the Country Director of Plan China, said on the conference, “Plan China have launched ECCD in Shaanxi Province since 2001, and we have accumulated cert |
ain experiences in improving the coverage rate of early childhood care and education service, as well as in improving service ability and quality of grass roots. The ECCD project we launch in Ningxia is creative and tentative. Through the implementation of the pilot project, we hope to benefit those poor children without government’s support in pre-school education but are most in need of receiving education. We also hope to find a good way for promoting ECCD in Ningxia so as to initially establish an effective and sustainable project operation mechanism.