Taking another step towards expanding access to preschool education, the government, this past Tuesday, inked a deal for the Private Preschool Partnership. 

The partnership is designed to place public school preschoolers in approved private preschools. 

With this agreement, participating private preschools will accommodate preschoolers, who government preschools cannot accommodate. 

Minister of Education Jeffrey Lloyd said, “May I say, at the very outset, that I am deeply grateful and impressed with where we have come with this most important initiative and that is to enable the education, the training and the conditioning of the most precious of our human beings and that is our babies.”

The minister added that more than 40 percent of the students entering grade one aren’t adequately prepared. 

“If they’re not ready for grade one, they probably won’t be ready for grade three, grade seven, grade nine, or life after school, certainly in university,” he said.

“So, it is critical that we establish the foundation and we establish it properly.”

Forty-four providers accepted the offer of public-private partnership and entered into contracts with the Early Childhood Education section of the Ministry of Education when the initiative was launched last November.

Minister Lloyd expressed that he is looking forward to a “fruitful, beneficial and in some instances, profitable relationship going forward”.