Of counties with preschool education

In each community, nurturing young children is a pre-occupation of not only mothers, but every member of the family to which the toddler belongs, and in some places, the wider village.

In Kenya, the gains of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) is largely acknowledged, especially the infinite influence of ECCE on school readiness and the readiness to learn, and its value in promoting lifelong learning.

Indeed, access to pre-school education is a basic right, guaranteed under article 53(b) of the Kenya Constitution.

At the global level, 2015 marks the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Education for All goals (EFA).

Subsequently, various consultations have taken place at national, continental and global levels, in taking stock of the achievements over the past decades, determining and building consensus on what the new targets should be, for the period 2015 to 2030.

In the last weeks, two major meetings happened and endorsed that early childhood care as among Africa's education priorities for 2015 to 2030, ensuring that all children get at least one year of quality preschool education, to promote their readiness to learn.

What one must ask however is, are all Kenyan counties pursuing their constitutional obligation of providing care and education to all children aged four and five years?

Analysis done by Uwezo shows gender and geographical inequalities impeding the achievement of ECCE.

First, the analysis indicates that highest preschool enrollment rates are in rural agricultural counties like Nyeri, Kisii and Uasin Gishu, while lowest rates of enrollment are in arid and semi- arid counties including Mandera, Wajir and Tana River.

Urban counties lie in the middle.

Secondly, out of a total of 46 surveyed counties, eight (8) have near gender parity in enrollment, including Nakuru and Migori, 18 counties have higher girls' enrollment rates including lamu and Homabay, while 20 have higher boys' enrollment rates including Tana River and Tharaka Nithi.

Counties with highest preschool enrollment rates have children spending at least two years in preschool.

Shockingly, a child in primary school in Mombasa has on average spent one more year in preschool than a child in Wajir.

These findings are indeed tormenting. Despite the government of Kenya devolving the management, administration and financing of ECCE, it is currently facing related challenges like low budgetary allocation and lack of clear policies to govern the management of preschool.

So far we have witnessed the County Governments tussle with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) over the hiring of ECCE teachers.

Yet, nearly a third of the Kenyan children have no access to early stimulation in preschool, and most of these are in the rural remote areas and among pastoralist communities.

Besides inadequate access, the quality of the education provided by preschool centres leaves a lot to be desired.

Available evidence indicates that most preschool teachers are either untrained, or are trained but lack the requisite knowledge and skills to teach at that level.

It is this level that you must understand highly how to appropriately stimulate children, and ensure holistic growth and development, to build up energy for eventual learning in primary school, and thereafter.

Because of poor teachers, we may argue that this is the genesis of the mess in our system – where the potential of children is killed, rather than fostered, and where special needs are not identified and nurtured.

Unless we invest in our children and particularly the young ones, we have no future.

Counties must ensure adequate, well trained, motivated and supported teachers to teach children of this age.

There is need for increased investments to ensure equitable quality especially in arid and semi-arid areas.

Children should also enroll at the right age so that we achieve universal enrolment of all children aged four to five years within the next few years.

Finally the government must come up with a consensus on what should be taught, and outcomes that must be achieved at this level, to avoid both under- and over-stimulation, and build foundations for proper regulation nationally.