The government, in collaboration with the Van Leer Foundation, established the National Center for Early Childhood Education at the Kenya Institute of Education to enhance the development of preschool education.
The centre's main responsibility is to train the instructors of preschool teachers, who are then posted to District Centers for Early Childhood Education.
There are 18 such centres and the ultimate objective is to have a centre in every district.
The pre-primary education program has grown tremendously over the past 20 or so years.
There are many syllabi used in Early Childhood Education that need to be standardised during this CBC curriculum.
The number of children attending pre-primary units in 1990 was in the order of 800,000, while the number of preschool teachers was about 20,000.
Now the number has grown to over one million.
Currently, ECDE is a devolved function and most of the teachers are certificate holders.
Their counterparts in primary schools are receiving CBC training for free.
Therefore children transiting to primary school encounter CBC in class one, this being a challenge.
Also, the furniture the children use is outdated or not to the standard of nursery school children.
This becomes a problem when the children are doing their classwork as it hinders their creativity.
Therefore furniture to be used by young children should be made standard, available and adopted by all county governments.
Another challenge is the Covid -19 pandemic. Most of the young children are affected by sanitiser and it is high time soap and water were used and placed strategically so that the children can wash their hands immediately they are from playing or from the washroom.
Also, the Ministry of education should educate the learners and the teachers about the Covid -19 pandemic.
Some countries have developed vaccines for young children and even vaccinated them but in Kenya, they are not available.
So it is safe to encourage young children to wash their hands.
The other challenge is the high fees charged by private schools for ECDE learners. Let the Education ministry help reduce the nursery fees.
The government should look at the problems affecting Nursery schools and rectify them.
Director careers organisation
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
