Fatimah, flanked by her deputy Datuk Rosey Yunus (left) and Early Childhood Development division head Salina Bujang, while attending the Zoom meeting.
KUCHING (June 29): About 2,000 educators and their assistants in kindergartens, also known as Tadika, have been vaccinated against Covid-19 as of June 24, said Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
The state Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development said 1,161 educators, representing 30 per cent of overall educators in Tadika, and 924 assistants (40 per cent) had already been vaccinated.
“As for Taska, 316 babysitters (39 per cent) and 105 assistants (67 per cent) at the childcare centres were already vaccinated in Sarawak,” said Fatimah during at the Early Childhood Development Council meeting conducted via Zoom recently.
She said the ministry had compiled the names of 4,644 educators and babysitters, including their assistants, who had yet to receive their vaccination appointment to be submitted to the standby list for vaccination. Among them, 480 people were from Kuching.
Since March 12, Fatimah said her ministry, through its Early Childhood Development divisional offices, had submitted the names of 5,703 educators and babysitters at early childhood educational institutes to the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC).
This was so that the group of individuals could be prioritised in the vaccination programme to make sure their institutes could provide education and care to children of frontliners in a safe environment.
“Once the educators and babysitters at Tadika and Taska have been vaccinated, their centres can operate to provide support to working parents. Learning from home method is not suitable for Tadika due to the young age of students.”
Fatimah said her ministry had permitted Tadika and Taska to operate during this Movement Control Order (MCO) for children of frontliners only and a total of 137 Tadika centres with 1,097 children had been allowed to operate.
For Taska, she said 94 such centres had been permitted to operate with 440 children of frontliners.
“Our ministry has also submitted application to SDMC to allow children of parents working in the three categories of essential services; namely banking, educational and media industries, to attend Tadika and Taska. We have yet to receive a reply from them.”
At the same, Fatimah said they had received appeals from parents working in 50 types of jobs classified under the essential services and the ministry was studying their appeals before submitting to SDMC for consideration.
During the Early Childhood Development Council meeting, representative from the Taska and Tadika sectors were invited to provide their inputs for Post-Covid Recovery Plan; namely Sarawak Kindergarten Operators Association president Jason Kong, the Association of Registered Childcare Providers Sarawak president Ng Lee Boon and Tadika Astana Miri operator Siti Hajijah Abdullah Sain.
“The suggestions proposed in the meeting will be studied by the ministry to draft a Post-Covid Recovery Plan for Taska and Tadika in Sarawak,” said Fatimah.
Meanwhile, the state minister also said a maiden ‘Pre-school Educational International Convention’ will be held from Oct 1 to 3 this year by her ministry in collaboration with early childhood development divisional offices and Sarawak Early Childhood Education Development Council.
She said it will involve educators, operators and babysitters from the public and private Tadika and Taska centres to emphasise on the importance of early childhood development as an important asset to mould a quality and excellent human capital.
Themed ‘Character Development under the New Norm’, Fatimah said the convention will be conducted in a hybrid format involving both face-to-face interaction with 50 participants attending at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) and 450 participants taking part virtually through Zoom Webinar.
The convention will be conducted in full compliance with existing standard operating procedures.
The objectives of the convention are to enhance knowledge and understanding among educators on character development in children and identifying challenges in developing character, talents, passion and potential of children during this Covid-19 pandemic.
It is also to enhance the educators’ skillsets under the new norm to promote the development of emotional, physical, social, cognitive and spiritual aspects of the children.