Last week I had the opportunity to visit the beehive of activity that is the Westin Dragonara Resort’s childcare centre. This fully equipped and professionally run centre was developed and upgraded with EU funding. The result is a haven for small boys and girls who can not only enjoy playing and socialising with each other but also do so under the ever attentive eyes of qualified professional child carers.
The importance of childcare centres cannot be emphasized enough. These centres run the risk of being viewed as simply a place where children can spend a good time, but the scope is much wider than this.
It is a fact that when very young children start playing with toys or using crayons what they are really doing is listening to and trusting themselves. They are eagerly following their instincts and exploring the World around them. In other words, they are developing their creativity. Creativity is essentially a form of problem solving – a type of problem solving applied to problems that have no easy answer.
Creativity to solve problems will become essential in life and this is why it is very important that children are exposed to an environment that stimulates their creativity. It is very important to provide children with an environment that allows them to explore and play without due restraints. At the earliest stages of children’s lives one must adapt to their ideas rather than try to structure children’s ideas to fit those of adults. Children’s ideas must be accepted and creative problem solving should be encouraged. The emphasis should also be put on the process rather than on the product.
Childcare centres provide this environment and mire. In so doing they are encouraging creativity in children and making available the first tools that will help them cope with what life will have to offer in their adulthood.
Childcare centres are providing more than this. Thanks to these centres parents of young children can continue with their career with their mind at rest that their children are in good care. This means that childcare centres are helping the labour market as otherwise many parents would have had to bring their career to an end or, at best, postpone it.
More jobs are also being created in the childcare sector itself as new opportunities are opening up in this area. It is a relatively new career path that many are taking with the result that some are even opening up their own childcare centres and thus creating more jobs.
This justifies government’s decision to prioritise this sector and ensure the acquisition of funds from the EU to continue to strengthen childcare and to give it scope for expansion while encouraging parents, particularly mothers, to remain active in the labour market.
The 2004-2006 EU funding programme allocated to Malta contained programmes specifically intended to train persons to work in childcare centres. Babies and children are particularly vulnerable and require the best possible care for their well-being and development. It is very important that persons entrusted with the care of children do give infants the best alternative care possible and that standards are maintained. In all, 120 persons were trained through EU funds and 38 of these opened up their own or are working in a childcare centre.
Three private companies used EU funds to open childcare centres within their own enterprise. Employees of these companies are making use of these centres and this is allowing them to remain in their job while their children are professionally cared for.
Through the 2004-2006 funding programme government also set up a childcare centre at MCAST. This is making it possible for mothers to continue with their courses at MCAST or starting new ones. The MCAST childcare centre is also being used by teachers and other MCAST employees, and by residents of Paola.
The MCAST childcare centre is an addition on the other seven centres set up by government in Paola, Luqa, Birkirkara, Vittoriosa, Gharghur, Cospicua and the University of Malta. Four new childcare centres are planned to be opened this year, namely in Qawra, Pembroke, Siggiewi and the Junior College.
Government’s aim is to increase the accessibility to childcare centres and with this in mind part of the 2007-2013 EU funding programme has been allocated to the upgrading of existing childcare centres and the setting up of new ones. This means that we will not just have state of the art childcare centres but also that more jobs will be created in this particular sector.
Government is also handing out a tax rebate up to a maximum of e1,000 to families of children attending private kindergartens. As in the childcare centres sector, this is also increasing accessibility to early education for our children. Statistics are encouraging as 95.5 per cent of children under the age of four in Malta attend kindergartens and this is nine per cent over the average in EU Member Sates.
Generation and expression of ideas are the first tools children need so that, later on in life, they will have the confidence to take risks, challenge assumptions and see things in a new way. Increasing accessibility to childcare centres and kindergartens will go a long way in preparing our children for life as tomorrow’s youths and adults.