Davao City gets DSWD award for its daycare services

Davao City Hall (File photo from the Davao City website)

DAVAO CITY, Davao del Sur, Philippines — Davao City has just received from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) a 2021 Gawad Paglilingkod sa Sambayanan (Gapas) for being the best local government in implementing daycare services.

Gilda dela Gente-Salvaña, chief of the Preschoolers and Children’s Concerns Division chief, received the award on Feb. 26 at the Batasan Complex in Quezon City, accompanied by Dr. Melodina B. Pardiollo.

In a statement, Salvañas said the award was in recognition of the efforts of the city government in ensuring that daycare center operations are at par with the standards of the award-giving body, the DSWD.

“With and without this commendation, Davao City has been at par in the implementation of the daycare services,” Salvaña said.

To qualify for the award the local government unit has to have the following:

• one daycare center per barangay
• 85% of barangays with functional Barangay Council for the Protection of Children
• availability of Investment Plan For Children
• at least 80 percent of daycare workers are accredited
• salary of daycare workers should be at least Salary Grade 6 or above
• enrollment/participation rate of the children should be 90 percent
• a low number of dropouts
• conduct of capability building for daycare workers
• organized parents of children catered in the daycare centers

The city government has set up not just one daycare center for each of the 182 barangays, but 684 daycare centers with 558 of them having their own buildings, and 126 are home-based.

The DSWD has accredited  81% of the daycare workers with most of them appointed to regular local government positions.

Based on available data, the city government provided about P116.43 million in 2020 for the operation of daycare services.

‘We have not stopped in adding more daycare centers as home-based (centers) is our other modality in making parents teach other parents (on how to take care of their children) because our goal is that no child should be left behind,” Salvaña said.

She pointed out that there is a need to strengthen steps in providing early childhood education.

The award was the second for the city this year. Last month, it also received recognition of being the Most Competitive Highly-Urbanized City in Visayas and Mindanao from the Department of Trade and Industry for its economic dynamism, government efficiency, infrastructure, resiliency, and innovation.

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