News

A workshop on daycare centers was held in NCFA offices presided by Minister of Social Development Hala Lattouf and attended by 25 representatives from relevant institutions.
The workshop aimed at preparing a draft by-law for nurseries based upon a partnership-based approach that takes into account international and local indicators related to early childhood development, accreditation criteria and services quality control, incorporating at the same time all key recommendations and points cited within national reference frames related to early childhood development.
During her speech, Lattouf pointed out that the first 1000 days of a child's life lay the foundations of his/her physical, linguistic, emotional and social built up and personality; hence comes the role of nurseries that target children from (0-4 year) in the advancement of their developmental characteristics and personality by taking advantage of the available opportunities in their outdoor environment. One of such opportunities is the National Strategy for Human Resources Development 2016-2025 which has devoted a section of the strategy to early childhood development talking about the priorities in the sector of nurseries including increasing enrolment rates in nurseries, raising the rates of qualified nursery caregivers and increasing the rates of model nurseries.
The Minister emphasized that the implementation of HRD Strategy establishes a compelling reason for reviewing and developing the current nursery by-law following an institutional approach in accordance with internationally and locally approved early child development measurement indicators. The strategy can serve as a reference for developing the accreditation criteria for social care institutions and assuring the quality of their service in alignment with Jordanian policies which are reflected in the strategy and its implementation action plan.
According to Lattouf, licensing, monitoring, and evaluating the status of the nursery and its service recipients falls under the responsibility of the Ministry and its partners according to legislation in effect. The criteria and implementation requirements for such processes should be reviewed from the perspective of the HUD Strategy following an institutional approach.
In light of the widespread quality management approach at the level of theory and implementation, the growing number of local, regional and global institutional performance awards, the prevailing culture of child rights and the complementarity among institutions of social upbringing (nurseries, kindergartens, and school), everything has become standardized which calls for more focus on standardizing nurseries in general and childcare-oriented programs in particular, added Lattouf.
On his part, NCFA Secretary-General Fadel Al-Hmoud stressed the importance of nurseries in the care and upbringing of its service recipients (children) as well as the need to scale up the services provided through applied sciences, noting the significance of this workshop as it instills the concept of institutional approach which joins together all those involved in the area of early childhood development.