Prime
Invest in early childhood devt for better learning
Prosper Atwooki
What you need to know:
- For a country that is grappling with a high school dropout rate, and its consequences including teenage pregnancy, child marriages, and low literacy levels in some regions, ECD becomes a clear way out of the pandemic of school enrolment not being commensurate with school completion.
Studies over the years have shown that children’s development in their first few years shapes the rest of their lives, for better or worse. Uganda’s formal education system is composed of four levels: preprimary, primary, post primary education and training, and tertiary and university education.
Traditionally, focus has been on the primary, post primary and tertiary levels, leaving preprimary or early childhood development (ECD) to the private sector. According to research conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), early childhood education fosters cognitive skills along with attentiveness, motivation, self-control and sociability, a combination of character skills that build solid a foundation for lifelong learning.
It should be acknowledged that Uganda has done a commendable job as far as offering universal access to education at primary and secondary levels is concerned. Actually, in Uganda now, 9 in every 10 persons aged six and12 (91 percent), about 8 in every 10 persons aged 13 and 18 (79 percent) and nearly one in every four persons aged 19 and 24 (23 percent) are currently attending school. This high school enrolment rate is attributed to the government’s deliberate policy to increase access to primary and secondary education.
However, whereas a lot has been done, more efforts for the pre-primary section are needed. With the adoption of the Programme-Based Budgeting (PBB), ECD has fallen further down the pecking order and the picture is a bleak one. There has been little effort to invest more in ECD.
This is despite the enormous benefits that a robust investment in ECD brings. For instance, research shows us that for every dollar invested in ECD, there is a $7 return on investment. In business, that is a 700 percent profit for every dollar invested. Research has also shown that children who attend ECD sessions are more likely to spend more years in school than their peers who missed out.
For a country that is grappling with a high school dropout rate, and its consequences including teenage pregnancy, child marriages, and low literacy levels in some regions, ECD becomes a clear way out of the pandemic of school enrolment not being commensurate with school completion.
The government needs to take a leading role in the provision of ECD services. Key actions include training and recruiting ECD teachers, investment in professional teacher development as well as setting up public ECD centres at village level, empowering districts to deliver on their mandate as laid out in Schedule II, Part 2 of the 1997 Local Government Act as amended. This would require a robust fiscal decentralisation strategy that puts resources at the district level to establish ECD centres, recruit staff and monitor implementation of ECD interventions.
According to the 2019 National Teacher Policy, there are more than 347,219 teachers employed in public and private schools and all the 16,741 teachers in ECD are employed by the private sector. Government directly employs 266,290 teachers as follows: 184,275 in primary schools; 67,168 in secondary schools; 13,870 in tertiary institutions; 750 in Primary Teachers Colleges and 227 in National Teachers Colleges (NTCs).
The minimum pupil to teacher ratio for ECD is 25:1. The funding for ECD in refuge hosting districts remains dismally low despite their unique challenges. For instance, only 39 percent of refugee children and 19 percent of the host community are currently enrolled in ECD. Even for those who attend, the quality is constrained by large class sizes, poor infrastructure, and shortage of trained caregivers.
Regulation of the sector is something that government needs to take seriously. For instance, of the 752 ECD centres in the 14 refuge hosting districts, only 171 are licensed. This not only affects the quality of the care and education but also weakens the very foundation upon which our education system should be anchored. Regulation is often made better when funds to recruit staff and establish the regulatory structures are availed.
The clarion call to increase investment in ECD should not only be made to government. Donors equally need to apportion more in terms of Official Development Assistance (ODA). It is a public secret that only 3.8 percent of total ODA is allocated to ECD with 95 percent going towards health and nutrition. For a country that wants to increase enrolment, retention and completion rates and establish an economy with $9,500 (about Shs34,673,575) GDP per capita by 2040, robust investments in ECD are not only needed but also inevitable.
The writer is a Public Policy Specialist
