Section 5December 05, 2000, Sec./Art. 5

System Framework and Components. - The ECCD System shall include the following components:

(a) ECCD Curriculum - which focuses on children's total development according to their individual needs and socio-cultural background. It shall promote the delivery of complementary and integrative services for health care, nutrition, early childhood education, sanitation, and cultural activities. It shall use the child's first language as the medium of instruction.

(b) Parent Education and Involvement, Advocacy, and Mobilization of Communities - which harness and develop parents' strengths as providers of ECCD at home, active partners or other stakeholders, advocates for community concerns that affect children, and pillars of support for local and national ECCD programs through community organization efforts.

(c) Human Resource Development Program - which establishes mechanisms for the systematic professionalization of ECCD service providers, through enrolment in educational programs in site-based or distance educational modes, through pre-service or in-service training including continuing education programs, whereby a registration and credential system shall be developed in the ECCD System.

(d) ECCD Management - which focuses on a continuing process of planning, implementation, supervision, financial management, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. It shall encourage the active involvement and build the capabilities of service providers, parents, and local government officials to sustain the program, and it shall be guided by the principles of decentralization as stipulated in the Local Government Code of 1991.

(e) Quality Standards and Accreditation - which ensures that each component in the ECCD System complies with national quality standards, to be established by the National ECCD Coordinating Council as provided for under Section 8 of this Act, linked to an accreditation process.