Anissa S. Febrina, Jakarta – A 12-meter-square single-classroom kindergarten in a kampong in Pangkalan Jati, South Jakarta, offers nothing fancy. But, for the last five years, it has been a safe haven for toddlers from poor families in the area.
Initiated by a group of local women involved in regular meetings at a nearby mosque, the kindergarten runs a morning playgroup, charging parents a monthly fee of as low as nothing.
Separately, in a squatter settlement in Bukit Duri, South Jakarta, parents send their children to an affordable kindergarten run by 70-year-old Herry Insiami Koestiono.
Aside from providing services for poor children, the school also teaches adults to read and write.
While wealthier families can choose either to enroll their children in an international preschool or hire a babysitter, community-initiated kindergartens are poor families' last resort.
If there happens to be one in their neighborhood. Others who are not so lucky have nothing to offer their children but the school of hard knocks.
Scavengers pulling carts loaded with junk, and their children, are a common sight in the city. Saniman's three toddlers – Mega, Yuli and Wati – have learned pretty much everything they know hanging out by the railway tracks in Palmerah, Central Jakarta.
"A nice woman rented a house for us, but I can't leave my children unattended all day," said Saniman's wife. Apparently early education and care is not a priority on her side of town.
Despite studies saying that the existence of such centers benefits toddlers from low-income families more than their better-off counterparts, Jakarta has yet to see enough centers providing early education for the poor.
According to the Jakarta Statistics Agency, only 92,850 of the some 720,000 toddlers in the city have access to the service of 1,833 kindergartens.
A review of the development of early education and care in the country, conducted by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2004, cited that children from poor families receiving education at an early age would have the chance to increase their future potential income by 12.5 percent. Sadly, the country's spending on early education and care is among the lowest in the world, lagging behind that of Jamaica, Mexico, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
During its review in Jakarta, the UNESCO team also found that subsidies from the National Education Ministry were often misdirected to train teachers at wealthy kindergartens instead of community-initiated ones in the city's kampongs.
It further pointed out the potential of maximizing the role of long-time community-based activities like the Family Welfare Program (PKK) and integrated health service posts (Posyandu).
East Jakarta municipality has started by training PKK members to manage small day-care centers for toddlers in the area.
Meanwhile, through simple corporate responsibility programs, the private sector could also join in the effort to make early education and care available by supporting community-managed centers.
Such a social investment would undoubtedly go a long way toward improving lives.