Day Care and early childhood education in Japan poses a unique system and way of bringing up the young children to sports, cultural and academic affairs from age 2 to 5 years old.
From 7:30 am, the hoykuen is open to recieve the young children from parents who brought their children from Monday to Saturday. They are fetched back in the afternoon until 6:30 pm. or else, an overtime payment will be charged to the late parents.
Children brought their pajamas, unduku or sports wear, toiletry and a small or slim futon (sleeling bag) for their nap time. They have their lunch in the hoykuen, nap time, indoor and outdoor games, children's book-reading, paper-folding, drawing, singing, coloring, to the advancement of writing and reading the basic hiragana of the Japanese language. Their curricular program seem to be good and effective as it exposed the young children to the fundamental education starting from arts, culture, sports and academe.
Today, for the third year, I witnessed the cultural show or o-tanoshimikai in the hoykuen where my youngest daughter Julie is studying.
She was with their class doing the skit. She was given the first recital part of a story taken from selected children's books like the Peter Pan and the like. They also have other numbers on singing and palying some basic musical instruments like the tambourine, bells, chimes, bamboo-tik-taks, lyres and drum and others. Teachers were so good in developing the stage props from scenes one to the end.
Moreover, I observed the presence of a few special children who need more special care and attention. Amidst that case, teachers manage to bring them as part of the team in the stage plays and were given fitting roles to participate and act with the whole group.
Costumes were paper-made, props were from boxes but were all brightened to great compatible colors. Kudos to hoykuen teachers and staff!
I reflected that most mothers in the Philippines have difficulty to go to work because of the small children they take care. Japan has a good answer to that with the nice program in early childhood education. Toddlers from 1 to 2 year old are accpeted in the nursery where care-givers attend to them with the bottle milks and diapers. From 3 to 5 years old, the chidlrne are brought to their early educational program making the parents free to go to work for livelihood. They have their monthly payment for all the services from the hoykuen.
Filipina mothers are used to hire a yaya for their small children if they go to work. That needs monthly wage for the yaya. This time is cost P2,500 now aside from the food and shelter that they have with the family. But not all yayas are good to bring and expose the child to the field of art, sports, culture nad academe in the early years. Basically, the yaya became a mere "tagabantay" and nothing more.
Well, Day Care Programs in Philippines is under the DSWD yet the program is not a whole day but mostly from 2 to 4-hour program only in the Barangay halls usually. After that, mothers have to again take care of their children from lunchtime to the rest of the day.
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