Rollover strikes kids

Shauna Haylock, President, Early Childhood Association	Franz Manderson, Chief Immigration Officer

Friday,  March 3, 2006

Over the past many weeks high-powered lawyers and other adult professionals have been the talking point when it comes to suffering under the country’s seven-year roll-over Immigration policy.

However, the Week of the Young Child – 5 to 11 March – brings into focus the impact this policy will have on Cayman’s kids and, possibly reducing standards in Early Childhood Education here.

According to Early Childhood Association President, Shauna Haylock, training of staff and upgrading standards in over 20 pre-schools throughout the Islands, has been a focus over the past few months. However many of those who have been trained will soon be forced to leave.

“It seems as if we have some of our seasoned professionals in the field having to leave shortly because they only just got their letters,” lamented Ms Haylock.

“We have become very comfortable with these teachers because we know their standards and now it seems as if we have to start over because, some may have to leave soon, or by the very latest, next year.”
Early Childhood Education workers and teachers in the Cayman Islands find themselves in a peculiar position.

They have been embraced in the National Consensus on the Future of Education in the Cayman Islands document and their importance noted.

Item number three under Strategies to Bring About the Changes reads:

“The development of an Early Years Unit to set standards, evaluate performance and support improvements in day-care centres, pre-schools and Reception programmes. The sentiment of such an objective is that education, at whatever level, is important,” said one teacher in the pre-school system.”

Yet on the other hand, pre-school teachers have to face the fact that they are not excluded from the seven-year rollover like teachers in Government Schools.

“If pre-school education is deemed important, this is one serious issue that the Education Ministry will have to deal with if education is to be upgraded all round. The Ministry included us in national education discussions earlier this year and now look at what we are facing on our own,” another pre-school educator said.

Stating clearly that he was unable to address the precise classification of workers in the Pre-Schools – as that would need to be referred to the Education Ministry – Chief Immigration Officer, Franz Manderson said he could, however, confirm that these workers, like those in private schools, were considered non-Government or private sector workers, and would therefore be subject to the rules relating to the Immigration Rollover Policy.

Mr Manderson however queried whether, having had knowledge of the policy, and the fact that their group would be affected by the Law in the format that it presently stands, if any applications for exemptions or residency had been made to offset the problem?

Cayman Net News asked Ms Haylock to address Mr Manderson’s point.

“We are just now beginning to look at this,” she said. “Many in our system are actually trained teachers, but, for a long time, workers in Early Childhood Education have been simply viewed as caregivers. We had thought this had changed, or at least was changing, in light of the fact that we had trained teachers.”

The Rollover is not the only big issue that Early Childhood Education has to face.

Cayman is linked to NAEYC National Association for Education of Young Children (NAEYC) – the largest organisation of early childhood professionals in the United States, 100,000 members, a national network of over 300 local, state, and regional Affiliates – and it is through its link to this 80-year-old Association that the Islands is mounting its ninth recognition of the Week of the Young Child, under the international theme “Building Better Futures for All Children.”

NAEYC figures reveal the number of children in the pre-school educational environment lend significant importance to the K (from birth) to 8-year-old period of life, and give just reasons for more attention to be paid to all factors affecting Early Childhood Education the world over – including the Cayman Islands.

NAEYC revealed that in 2003, 64 per cent of mothers with children under age six were in the US labour force and, in year 2000, 55 per cent of mothers with infants (under age one) were away from children, at work.
In these instances, the most common primary arrangements used for preschoolers were center-based care.

Because of the widespread and common nature of problems across countries, NAEYC is now looking at position statements and standards in relation to Anti-Discrimination; Code of Ethical Conduct; Developmentally Appropriate Practice; Accreditation; Early Childhood Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation; Violence in the Lives of Children; Technology and Young Children; Unacceptable Trends in Kindergarten Entry and Placement; Standards of Professional Training Programmes; School Readiness, and many other issues.

Even though for Cayman, Ms Haylock estimated that there were approximately 30 students in each of the Islands’ over 20 pre-schools. With 50 teachers registered as members of the Early Childhood Association here, the ratios are significant enough, and, the importance of the issues still apply.

Ms Haylock also said Cayman parents need to sit up and pay attention during the week of activities which includes a seven-day line-up of visits to preschools and pre-school children opening savings accounts at First Caribbean International Bank, among other events.

“Parents need to pay attention to the condition in which their children are coming to school with respect to whether they have been bathed and dressed properly and, whether they have been fed with breakfast and given lunch,” she said.

“Also, parents are leaving children on the compounds too long after school time has ended. As well, there is the issue of parents living up to their payment responsibilities. We are working with the National Parenting Programme on some of these issues.”

suzanne@caymannetnews.com

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