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News & Events

ECE promotes child social and emotional competence

2018-06-15

In collaboration with the Simon K. Y. Lee Children’s Fund and numerous local kindergartens, the Department of Early Childhood Education (ECE) have been developing and testing a curriculum for young children in Hong Kong. The 4-year project, titled “Early Prevention, Early Identification, and Early Intervention (3ES),” targets child social and emotional competence.

The principal investigator of 3ES, Professor Kevin Chung, said, “We emphasize whole child development. Socioemotional development is as important as other aspects of development, including cognitive and language development. There is clear evidence that children’s social and emotional skills contribute to their future happiness and life success, regardless of their IQ or academic abilities.”

The project has been testing the effectiveness of the curriculum, which is based on two years of research conducted by the team with local children. After one year of joint collaboration, nine kindergartens that have used the first half of the curriculum got together, sharing their experiences and insights and planning for the second half of the curriculum. Another nine kindergartens will start using the curriculum in 2018-2019. The ultimate goal is to provide high quality teaching materials for all kindergartens in Hong Kong to use, for free.

3ES is one rarely seen, evidence-based, locally derived programme that targets child social and emotional skills, indicating ECE’s determination to use science to make a difference in local families and communities.

3ES’s webpage: http://3esproject.eduhk.hk