Since 1959, Cuba has incrementally built a national system of day-care centres and early childhood and pre-school education programmes that today reaches 98,3% of the children in the 0-6 age group.

In 1992, Cuba, with support from UNICEF, created Educa a Tu Hijo (Educate Your Child) as a national programme of community-based services for young children and their families.

Depending on over 14 000 promoters and more than 60 000 volunteers, the programme reaches over 600 000 children in this age group, including more than 440 000 young girls, and their families.

Future mothers and fathers receive information and counselling about healthy pregnancies and child development during health visits to doctors and nurses.

Families with children under two years of age are visited once or twice a week and guided through activities that enhance their babies’€™ development.

Children between age two and four and their families go on weekly or semi-weekly group outings to parks, cultural facilities and sports centres with counsellors trained in child development and family participation.

And five to six year old boys and girls from mountainous, rural and remote areas travel to primary schools with their families for classes and family discussions once or twice a week.

Cuba has developed its approach to early childhood care through both traditional and participatory research, the latter method further engaging families and communities in the responsibilities of early childhood.

The Cuban system has had measurable success in increasing the developmental and educational achievements of Cuba’€™s children.

A 1998 comparative study of third- and fourth graders in 11 Latin American countries, for example, found that Cuban children scored significantly higher in third grade mathematics and third- and fourth grade Spanish than their counterparts. – Health-e News Service (www.health-e.org.za)