Section 3. Objectives. – The National ECCD System shall pursue the following objectives:
To achieve improved infant and child survival rates by ensuring that adequate health and nutrition programs are accessible to young children and their parents, from the prenatal period throughout the early childhood years;
To enhance the physical-motor, socio-emotional, cognitive, language, psychological and spiritual development of young children;
To facilitate a smooth transition from care and education provided at home to community or school-based setting and to kindergarten;
To ensure that young children are adequately prepared for the formal learning system that begins at kindergarten;
To establish an efficient system for early identification, prevention, referral and intervention for the wide range of children with special needs from age zero (0) to four (4) years;
To upgrade and update the capabilities of service providers and their supervisors to comply with quality standards for various ECCD programs;
To reinforce the role of parents and other caregivers as the primary caregivers and educators of their children especially from age zero (0) to four (4) years;
To enhance and sustain the efforts of communities to promote ECCD programs and ensure that special support is provided for poor, disadvantaged and linguistic minority communities;
To improve the quality standards of public and private ECCD programs through, but not limited to, a registration and credential system for ECCD service providers and facilities,
To ensure that the education of persons, and in particular children, who are blind, deaf or deafblind, are conducted in the most appropriate languages, modes and means of communication for the individual, and in environments which maximize academic and social development; and
To employ teachers, including teachers with disabilities, who are qualified in sign language and/or braille, and to train professionals and staff who work at all levels of education.