ESPACT and Malaysia Community Education Foundation (MCEF) signed a unique agreement to upgrade the qualifications of teachers in the MCEF-funded Harapan programme. Under the agreement ESPACT will help to deliver the Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education from Asia e University to qualified teachers in the Harapan Project. The Graduate Diploma will raise the qualification of Harapan teachers to the level prescribed by the Ministry of Education for early childhood education (ECE) teachers.

The Harapan Project has been remarkably successful as a community programme in making ECE more accessible to communities, especially those in rural areas. The MCEF-funded project supports a large number of ECE centres run by different NGOs by providing them with financial resources, educational materials and teacher training. The AeU programme will have a beneficial impact on teachers and no doubt the quality of education the children in the programme will receive.

ESPACT will play an important role in the delivery of the programme by providing the teachers with additional academic support in what is essentially a distance education programme. Professor John Arul Phillips, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Cognitive Science who is the architect of the Graduate Diploma played an important role in the arrangement to deliver the programme to Harapan teachers.

Mr Brahma, Director, MCEF and Mr U K Menon CEO, ESPACT exchange agreements after the signing. Looking on are Tan Sri Krishnan Tan (right, back), Chairman of MCEF and Dr Chew Sing Buan, Director of ESPACT who witnessed the signing.