Every Newborn- Reach up Early Education intervention for All Children Parenting Education on Pre/ Primary School Readiness: Joint Monitoring and Supervision by Central and Local Stakeholders

Introduction

EN-REACH (Every Newborn – Reach up Early Education Intervention for All Children) was implemented in five districts – Kaski, Tanahun, Syangja, Parbat and Baglung of Gandaki Province in collaboration with the Center for Education and Human Resource Development (CEHRD) Social Development and Health Ministry, the District Education Development and Coordination Unit (EDCU) and the Western Regional Hospital. During the implementation of the parenting education for school readiness sessions, the central and local level stakeholders conducted joint monitoring visits in different sessions from 15^th July to 9^th September 2023 to monitor and supervise the program. The monitoring visits were conducted in different sessions across all the clusters in 5 districts.

Objective

Monitor  the quality of parenting sessions and provide feedback to the implementing organization and facilitatorsto improve the effectiveness of the program.

Table: Distribution of joint monitoring visits by date and district

Process

Mr. Paudel, observed session 2 at Parbat. He suggested scaling up the program to rural areas and encouraged parents to apply their learning at home and share with friends and family.
After observation of session 3, Mr. Regmi, provided valuable feedback especially to Golden Community for program extension to rural areas and emphasizing home learning, contributing to initiative’s effectiveness and success. He appreciated to facilitators for conducting the session in a participatory manner rather than a theoretical one and also thanked to facilitators to emphasize the importance of the activities’ objectives at the end of the session.
Mr. Dhakal, director, CEHRD expressed appreciation for the overall performance of the facilitators, highlighting their coordination skills and management of session materials for smooth activity execution, encouraging caregivers to attend these sessions.
Director and Section Officer of CEHRD, highlighted the development and the use of a facilitation manual for the parenting education sensitizing and emphasizing the importance of local household materials to support children’s learnings at home. During monitoring visit, Director of ECD section of CEHRD expressed “Underlining the importance of letting children make their own choices, it’s crucial not to force them into activities they don’t want to do, every child have their own level of development. The section chief also emphasized the important role of parents with the quote “As caregivers, it’s essential to offer supportive guidance, allowing children to learn without unnecessary pressure, creating a positive and nurturing environment.” She also appreciated the facilitators for their impressive performance, highlighting their coordination skills and management of session materials for smooth activity execution.

Director of ECD section of CEHRD, advised facilitators to organize session materials and activities ahead and also suggested  to incorporate relatable characters like cat or frogs in story telling during the role play  of activity “Puppy and Tree” for realistic learning.

Mr. Koirala appreciated the project for the child development initiative to raise awareness regarding the role of caregivers for school readiness at home. He showed interest in incorporating relevant activities into future curriculum.  He emphasized the significance of parenting education  in children’s development at home and encouraged them to attend sessions for further improvement.

Mr. Chaulagain, section officer, ECD section aappreciated caregivers’ active participation in the activities, emphasizing regular attendance and application of knowledge and skills learned during sessions for school readiness of children.

Supervision from CEHRD of final assessment

The final evaluation was condcuted by trained ECD officers after six weeks of parenting education sessions in all the districts . The purpose of the joint monitoring of the assessment was to observe the effectiveness of the intervention on the targeted beneficiaries.

During the visit the Deputy Director, CEHRD and Section Chief and Section Officer, ECD Section observed the assessment at the project study sites. They were very interested in the measurement tools and the method of learning and cognitive assessment of the children.

Monitoring and supervision update at CEHRD

Golden Community conducted progress update meeting at CEHRD, Sanothimi, Bhaktapur on 26 Poush, 2080 in coordination with the Director of CEHRD.  Mr. Deepak Sharma, Director General of CEHRD chaired the progress update meeting with a total of 18 participants. The purpose of the meeting was to share insights on the progress achieved, address challenges encountered during the intervention and stragtegies on the upcoming activities as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CEHRD.

Valuable insights were provided by CEHRD officials. For example, need of scale up to all the children of few ECD centers or covering a specific area to prevent duplication of program implementation. Officers from CEHRD were interested in the assessment tools, their implications and also how these tools can be adopted for the government implementation in terms of assessing of child learning and cognition.

Officers were also interested to be updated on the outcome of the assessment as well as the effectiveness of the ENREACH package that was implemented.