At least 19,618 Nairobi children have enrolled in Early Childhood Development Education since public ECDE centres' fees were abolished last year.
The county aimed to increase enrolment from 15,295 to 17,000 in January this year, but has surpassed the target.
County assembly Education committee chairperson Milicent Mugadi on Wednesday attributed the increase to improved and quality services.
"When the governor declared ECDE centres free, we had to find ways in which our young children would feel appreciated and at the same time get proper and quality services as they learn," she said.
"We have carried out some renovations in the centres to make them child-friendly and increased the number of teachers."
The Ziwani ward rep said ECDEs teacher are paid on time, which motivates them to do a better job. Nairobi has 205 ECDE centres in public primary schools and 24 stand-alone centres.
In June last year, the county government abolished nursery school fees. About 13,000 children were enrolled in the centres then.
In October 2018, Brookside Dairies partnered with the county government to supply free milk to 17,000 schoolchildren.
In the 2018-19 supplementary budget, ECDEs were allocated Sh205.46 million.
The report states that Sh22.8 million will be spent on providing ECDE milk and Sh50 million to pay new teachers' salaries.
An additional Sh133.176 million will be spent to build 12 new ECDE centres. In the current budget, Sh70 million was allocated for the ECDE programme.
