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Belgian Ambassador to Vietnam Paul Jansen visits a kindergarten in Kon Tum province. Photo courtesy of Belgian Embassy

In the framework of his visit to Kon Tum province, on December 11-13, Ambassador Jansen visited early childhood education facilities in Kon Plong district.

Kon Tum province was the first area in the Central Highlands region selected by the Belgian government to be given support through both governmental and non-governmental channels.

Over the last four decades, together with VVOB Vietnam và Plan International Vietnam, Belgian Development Cooperation contributes to an improved access to quality pre-school education for all children. Through child centered education we remove (ethnic diversity) barriers by placing the well-being of the children at the centre of the teaching approaches.

The projects include “Support for Responsive Accountable Local Governance” with a budget of 1 million EUR (1.11 million USD) for each province. It aims to strengthen citizen-government engagement as a means of promoting more transparent, accountable and responsive local governance; improving delivery of public services and increased levels of citizen satisfaction, while conducting mutual learning between the three provinces and with other national institutions.

The project “We Strive for a Just World that Advances Children’s Rights and Equality for Girls” is being carried out from 2017 to 2021 in Kon Plong and Sin Ho districts in Kon Tum and Lai Chau provinces, in partnership with the Vietnam Women's Union and Live and Learn with a budget of 2.5 million EUR.

Based on a child-centred development approach, the project focuses on the rights to a high-quality education and a smooth transition to primary school for children under eight years old.

The project, “Mitigating Preschool Children’s Barriers to Learning in Disadvantaged and Ethnically Diverse Districts-BAMI” from 2017-2021, has a budget of 4.142 million EUR. It centres on strengthening the professional development of preschool teachers and preschool leaders in early childhood education (ECE) in three provinces with disadvantaged and ethnically diverse districts in Central Vietnam.

The programme is built around three pillars: Improving preschool teachers’ and school leaders’ practice of process-oriented child monitoring; Strengthening preschool teachers’ and school leaders’ practice of addressing barriers to learning and participation, and ensuring deep level learning among all children and Enhancing needs-based/school-based teacher professional development (TPD) for preschool teachers on process-oriented child monitoring and addressing barriers to learning and participation.

Ambassador Paul Jansen also met Provincial People’s Committee Standing Vice Chairman Le Ngoc Tuan to exchange on the results of the Support for Responsive Accountable Local Governance Included project. This project was implemented in close collaboration between the Belgian Development agency (Enabel) and the Kon Tum Provincial People’s Committee, to improve citizen-government engagement as a mean of promoting more transparent, accountable and responsive local governance, improved service delivery and increased levels of citizen satisfaction./.