A total of 22,500 children in the country benefited from the Permata Negara Programme, the prime minister's wife Rosmah Mansor said today.

The programme currently involves 665 nurseries nationwide, including the Kemas Taska Permata.

"This achievement is in line with the main aspiration of its formation to give opportunity to rural children from low-income groups to attend early, quality education.

"It is in line with the principle 'No child is left behind'," Rosmah said in her speech at a gathering of nursery and pre-school children at Sekolah Kebangsaan Ampang Campuran in the Ampang parliamentary constituency of Kuala Lumpur.

Rosmah, who is also patron of the Permata programme, said that despite much criticism and accusations hurled at Permata during its early stages, it had borne fruit in efforts to develop children holistically.

Success proven by UPSI study

According to the prime minister's wife, this was proven from a study carried out by Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, which showed the development of emotion, personality and self-confidence of Year One and Year Two Permata children, indicating more confidence as compared to their peers.

"For example, the children of Permata demonstrated controlled emotional characteristics, were bright and cheerful and displayed a high self-esteem and self-confidence, as compared with other children their age," she said.

In terms of early communication and literacy, Rosmah said, children of Permata were capable of mastering communication skills well, especially in terms of expansion of language.

Furthermore, in the aspect of pre-mathematics, pre-science and logical thinking development, it was found that 30 percent of the children showed an achievement exceeding their age levels.

Rosmah also pointed out that the Permata programme had held in strategic collaboration with Kemas Taska under the National Unity and Integration Department to boost the standard of nurseries to be on par with Permata centres.

- Bernama