The Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) teachers play pivotal role in midwifing and ensuring sustainability of education in Kenya. Before the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, ECDE department was fully managed by the Ministry of Education (MoE).
The drafters of the constitution through the stakeholder public forums placed the ECDE management at the hands of the county governments. At first, this was viewed by many and sundry as a sure way of putting to an end myriad of challenges that the department was facing.
A decade down the line, ECDE challenges have grown, developed teeth and now biting than before. An in-depth scrutiny of the infrastructural facilities reveals a complete neglect in many counties. ECDE learners in many areas are housed in dilapidated and pathetic classes. Teachers who have been renamed as caregivers display a picture of a frustrated human resource save for those in countable counties.
A look into a remuneration policy in most of the counties, reveal a big disparity in stipends received. In considerate counties, ECDE teachers with certificates earn upto KSh25,000.
Majority of the rest of the teachers in other counties with the same qualifications earn a paltry of KSh10,000 to KSh12,000.
No wander they were renamed as caregivers and not teachers. Looking deeper into their job description and overall work policy, one would not tell and have a clear roadmap on how teaching and learning is structured.
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The education departments in some county governments are headed by individuals who have limited knowledge and experience on matters education. In such scenarios, education bosses are either friends or relatives of the appointing authorities. This has really hampered policy formulation leading to total disarray in the most critical department.
Many comprehensive school heads will bear witness that monitoring of ECDE teachers by the county governments officers is a rare happening. In most instances, ECDE teachers are asked to send data on enrollment and the status of infrastructure. Rare are the head teachers invited to attend meetings and seminars on the improvement of the ECDE centres.
The Presidential Working Report on Education and Reforms Task force recommended that pre-primary should be part of the primary school.
This was premised on the reality that a comprehensive school requires a one point management. It is shocking to see Council of Governors fighting to retain a department that for a decade, they have failed to keep it on traction.
In a bid to regularise teaching and learning pre-primary centres, Teachers Service Commission should be given the mandate to sanitize the mess in early childhood centres. The commission has the best structures on teacher management that can’t be equated to the county government.
By Joseph Kiptoo
The writer is a master of Education student at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology.
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