 The Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations through its Early Childhood Services Unit, ECSU, has been working collaboratively with local health authorities to ensure the safe reopening of the early childhood sector on the island. Authorities from the Department of Environmental Health have been conducting island-wide inspections of the various early childhood centres to ensure compliance to the guidelines provided in collaboration with the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards. As such, the early childhood sector reopened on a phased basis with all approved private centres resuming operations on Tuesday, 6 April 2021. Government operated centres will reopen their doors on Monday, 19 April 2021. Only centres which have met the approved guidelines and demonstrate a sense of readiness to receive children in a safe and conducive environment have been granted approval to reopen. Philip's favourite is the training officer in the Early Childhood Development Services Unit. Based on those protocols, all early childhood centres were expected to produce a COVID-19 response plan, which outlined in great detail all the measures they would be putting into place at the centres to ensure the safety, well-being, protection and health of the children, staff and parents. Those plans were approved by our unit and then they were forwarded to the Department of Environmental Health where the health inspectors went out to every early childhood centre to ensure that they were in compliance with the plans they had presented to us and that things were in place in keeping with the stipulated guidelines. We would like to say that we are aware that a few of the early childhood centres have not been visited as yet and as such they have not been allowed to reopen because reopening was contingent upon approval from the Department of Environmental Health. I would like to assure these administrators and staff members that the centres will be visited during the week of April 6th and upon approval from the Department they will be given the go-ahead by the unit to also resume their operations. The authorities are urging the centres to adhere to their established protocols. Mr. Phillips' favourite says there will be constant assessments. Both the officers from the Department of Environmental Health and the officers at the Early Childhood Services Unit will be doing regular monitoring of those centres to assess how those protocols are being implemented and to ensure adherence and compliance to them. We would like to commend the administrators and staff of the centres for the tremendous effort and resources expended in ensuring that those criteria and from cursory comments and discussions we are satisfied that they have complied fully and we want to encourage them that this has to be continuous. Maintenance and adherence cannot be compromised. Training officers in the Early Childhood Development Services Unit, Ruf Phillips' favourite.