Tips for parents, custom solutions, soft and technical skill building – partners present the NUMO content platform and chatbot for pre-schooler development

The Ministry of Education and Science together with UNICEF Ukraine have presented online the NUMO (Go ahead) content platform and chatbot about the importance of preschool development.

These tools will help parents to develop their children’s skills, using a personalized approach for each family.

“Preschool education should facilitate the individual child’s development and build the skills important for further development at the next levels of education, including personal choice, communication and interaction with others, teamwork skills and creativity. Thanks to our cooperation with UNICEF Ukraine, we have created the NUMO education platform for the development of preschool children, for parents from all over the country to use. NUMO offers parents and educators accessible tools to help standardize the pre-schoolers’ development, prepare them for school and make them happy,” highlighted Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine Liubomyra Mandzii during the online presentation.

The content platform provides information on balanced communication with the child, materials for the development of skills in observing sanitary rules and physical distancing requirements, as well as materials and exercises for the development of soft and technical skills, including:

• interaction with adults and children
• sensory development
• creativity
• emotional competence and self-identification
• self-control and self-care
• responsibility and ability to make choices
• safe behaviour and healthy lifestyles
• mathematics and speech
• environmental and civic awareness
• digital literacy.

All of these are global skills defined by UNESCO and UNICEF. To help families develop these skills in their children, more than 160 games and exercises have been collected on the NUMO content platform.

“The key skills and competencies that are moulded during preschool are the foundation for children's development. Studies show that children who have completed at least one year of quality preschool perform nearly twice as well on standardized literacy and numeracy exams at the end of primary level compared to their peers who have not had preschool experience. Early development is an investment not only in the future of the individual child, but also in the well-being of the whole

country. Adults who have had access to quality preschool education will also become more valuable workers in the future as a result of developed soft and hard skills,” said Ivelina Borisova, UNICEF Regional Adviser on Early Child Development.

A team of experts in psychology and pedagogy trusted by parents of pre-schoolers, including Svitlana Roiz and the Step by Step Foundation, worked on creating professional advice.

These tips have become part of the NUMO chatbot “numo_bot” in Telegram and Viber, which offers customized solutions for the development of every preschool child. When parents start using the chatbot, they are asked to fill out a small questionnaire about their children, which will inform daily advice, exercises and games that will be useful for the development of their children.