LAST weekend’s announcement that the Early Childhood Development Cross-Sectional Oversight Body has been re-established to coordinate and monitor implementation of strategies to improve services to young children is important news, even if it did not make the sensation-hungry headlines.

And yet it might have, if there was general understanding of some of the key information coming out of Friday’s press conference by the Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) headed by Chairman Dr Adrian Stokes.

For example, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dr Kasan Troupe, under whose watch the cross-sectional body falls, disclosed that a mere nine basic schools were modernised during the 2024/25 financial year.

Every major study on the status of education in Jamaica underlines the importance of early childhood nurturing and education. In fact, one finance minister got into hot water for suggesting that more resources should be put into early childhood education than tertiary.

Perhaps recognising that nine basic schools being modernised in a whole financial year was by no means impressive, Dr Troupe hastened to add that, “Within this financial year (2025/26) we’ll be taking on another 19 basic schools… to make sure that we continue to build out fully funded spaces in our early childhood institutions,” according to the Jamaica Information Service.

Many of the studies have agreed that much of the shortcomings at the primary and secondary levels of education can be traced back to an inadequate early childhood foundation that did not track developmental issues at their most critical point.

In a strange way, the status of early childhood education in Jamaica is quite a mixed bag. A few years ago, United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) flattered us by saying that: “Jamaica is recognised as a model for early childhood development, thanks to the results of a pioneering early childhood programme and near to 100 per cent enrolment in early childhood institutions at age three.”

Yet, despite having an estimated 2,700 early childhood education institutions the country was left limping by an acute shortage of infant schools, forcing communities to improvise with often faulty basic schools staffed by untrained teachers, poor maintenance of buildings, and school supplies reliant on broke parents, the community or outside donors.

Basic schools are regulated, supervised, and partially funded by the Jamaican Government but those stipends are barely ever enough to pay more than one trained teacher. Some of these basic schools are fortunate for being started by a retired teacher but some are not nimble enough to keep up with the energy of the young ones.

This makes the work of the Early Childhood Development Cross-Sectional Oversight Body and the Early Childhood Commission extremely crucial in ensuring that basic schools operate under the stipulations of the Early Childhood Act and its provisions for registration, licensing, operation, and inspection.

Children transition from basic to primary school at age six, having been exposed to reading, writing, basic counting, personal hygiene and safety, art, music, and science. Basic schools also impact their ability to socialise with others.

Problems not solved at this level many never be overcome.