The policy standard will be tabled in Parliament within the coming months, the Minister Child Development and Women's Empowerment Minister, Tissa Karaliyadda said.

Under the draft of the Child Development Policy standards, educational, social, development, health and so forth and needs and rights of children who are under year five will be given due consideration. Due to the unavailability of such a policy in the country several issues related to the child development come up.

The Child Secretariat is instrumental in gathering the relevant information through a survey for the formulation of the policy standards. The survey is being done on a provincial basis. Surveys in North and Sabaragamuwa provinces have already been completed while the survey in North Central and Wayamba is nearing completion.

The survey is being conducted by Early Childhood Development officers and an experts committee in the early childhood development sector. Children below five years, their parents and pre-school teachers are taken for the survey.

Earlier this year the Cabinet granted approval to enact the national policy on ‘Early Childhood Care and Development” which is being currently implemented as an Act.

Under this National policy, several steps were taken to improve the quality of the existing early childhood development programmes. On the other hand, provincial level coordinating committees have been established in all provinces and they are functioning by maintaining close ties with the central Government and through good coordination.