Formative Study of Parenting Education program 2016-17

Executive summary:      

The purpose of this study is to document the processes of the parental education programme, a joint initiative of UNICEF, Setogurans and Department of Education. The project intended to pilot newly developed parental education programme and raise awareness among caregivers on early childhood development. It targeted 500 ECD centres and 10,000 caregivers.

The studyhas elaborated all the process involved in the parental education programme, and details on participants reached. The assumption for this programme was that if parents are delivered with contents as per their interest and based on their availability, then the attendance rate of the parental education will be high. High attendance was further assumed to lead to positive changes in behaviour and perception of ECD topics.This assumption is confirmed true with the evidence that 11,593 (73.3 per cent) caregivers have attended more than 50 per cent of the sessions. The sample results in caregivers’ understanding by 85 per cent and 73 per cent in child status indicate that caregivers’ knowledge and practice towards child development have changed positively.

Following are recommendations based on the findings of the study:

1. Mentoring support plays a critical role in ensuring quality of PE session and should be maintained.
2. Improving the basic infrastructure of ECD facilities could demonstrate the standards for Early Childhood Development, as taught in PE sessions.
3. Other community platforms (besides ECD centres) should be considered to increase outreach among pregnant women and caregivers of children under three.
4. Specific methods targeting male participants/fathers should be developed, these methods must take into account the high level of out migration among men in the community.
5. Ensuring parents understand the importance of parental education is more important than incentivising attendance of PE sessions through snacks or remuneration.
6. Data collection forms, particularly to confirm changes, should be simple and practical.