Resources > Building for Early Childhood Development
Building for Early Childhood Development
Indonesia
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In early 1998, I was asked to join a World Bank pre-appraisal mission for the Early Childhood Development Project to be located in West Java, South Sulawesi and Bali Provinces. I was to focus on the construction of new and renovation of existing facilities for kindergartens and facilities to house the activities of the mother and child programme. This was, to a large extent a continuation of the work that I had been doing for the Basic Education Projects in West Java, South Sulawesi and Maluku in 1996 and 1997. Many of the issues raised in these projects such as land acquisition, design of facilities, construction arrangements, community participation and the maintenance of school buildings were very relevant to the Early Childhood Development Project.
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I prepared a report after the mission with designs for the proposed kindergartens and mother and child facilities together with recommendations for implementing the construction of the facilities. The construction was to be managed by village committees (we had used school committees in the Basic Education Projects and this had been very successful in getting the schools built and reducing the amount of corruption) with oversight and technical assistance to be provided by local firms of architects and engineers. The proposals can be seen in my report on the project of May 1998.
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An early childhood education specialist was later recruited by the project and the designs of the kindergartens were revised and the group/activities rooms were made larger. These final proposals for kindergartens can be seen in the attached drawings.
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When the project was complete, I was asked by the World Bank to prepare guidelines for the use of Bank project managers in implementing early childhood development programmes. The guidelines covered the use of existing facilities and the design and construction of new facilities for early childhood care and development programmes and these are attached. My report of May 2002 provides an overview of the implementation of the project together with photographs of some of the completed kindergartens.
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Vanuatu
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In 1999 when I was working in Vanuatu on an education master-plan for the World Bank, I was asked by a local NGO that was running pre-schools in the country, to prepare a design for a pre-school that could be constructed by communities out of locally available materials. The building that I designed was constructed of timber poles (with external cross-bracing), walls constructed of palm leaves and a roof of timber pole trusses with timber pole purlins and palm-leaf tiles. The floor was a simple concrete slab and light and ventilation was provided by top-hung shutters. There was a very large covered outside space for play and activities. Drawings for the pre-school are attached.
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Liberia
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In 2009 I was working on the World Bank EPA-FTI CF Education Project which contained proposals for the construction of a number of pre-school centres on the sites of existing primary schools. The proposals envisaged the provision of two group/play rooms accommodating up to 30 children up to the age of 5 in K1 and K2 at each primary school. The preliminary proposals are shown in my report of October 2009 and final proposals for the pre-school centres are shown in the attached drawings file. Eventually seven pre-school centres were constructed under the project. The decorative frieze for the group rooms was designed by my daughter, Bisi Wakeham.