The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy stipulates that quality early childhood education is critical for the intellectual, psychological, emotional, linguistic, social and physical development of a child.

However, to achieve that, different experts have noted that schools over-pump children. They teach them content that is not age appropriate.

Studies reveal that the brain grows to 90% of its adult weight by age five. Therefore, it also has a significant impact on an individual’s abilities, attitudes, values, skills and behaviour in later life.

Peter Okware, a school director and founder of Teachers TV Africa says early childhood development is quite complicated reason very few schools follow the ECCE policy (2018) guidelines set by the Ministry of Education.

Usually, the objective of the school determines what they teach.

He says some are service oriented while others focus on making profits to remain in business. Therefore, they will do things that please their customers.

“Education has been commercialized and some of the investors are not teachers. They turn learners into marketing tools for their businesses,” he opines adding, “They pump them to achieve results and in the end, market their schools.”

Graduation at Safe Steps Nursery and Primary School

Richard Musinguzi, another school director adds that education has become too competitive. If you stick to the guidelines, your school lags behind.

“Even in examinations, different things are set. Therefore, we have to play along with the trends,” he says.

“They tell us to teach children toilet habits but the primary entry exams have different questions. When kids fail, the school is blamed,” he says.

Parents who put the schools under pressure worsen the situation.

For example, Okware says, before enrolling their children in nursery section, some parents ask how the school performs in the Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE).

Regardless, he says, in kindergarten, children have to learn social habits, their environment including people at home and at school and places in the community, reading (literacy) and writing. 

They also boost their confidence and self-discovery such as determining the hand they use for writing.

However, it is hard to determine their talents because at this stage, the child can engage in many activities including; dancing, running, swimming and drama among others.

Statistics

ECCE concentrates on children aged 0 to 8 years of age who need to be nurtured in a safe and caring environment that allows them to become healthy, secure, confident and empowered persons with lifelong learning capabilities.

The national population projections of 2018 indicate the number of children between 0 to 8 years were 11,575,100 representing 30% of Uganda’s population.

Of these children, about 55% live in conditions of poverty (UBoS, 2016). There are 3,614,827 children aged 3 – 5 years, who are eligible for pre-primary education (EMIS, 2016).

However, by 2016, there were 6,798 registered pre-primary schools with a recorded total enrolment of 563,913 learners, of which 279,089 (49.5%) were boys and 284,824 (50.5%) girls. This implies a net enrolment of 15.6% meaning that 3,050,913 eligible learners were not accessing pre-primary education in 2016.

Comparatively, access to ECD delivery stood at; 9.5% in Uganda, 53.3% in Kenya and 35.5% in Tanzania in 2014.

However, according to Child Fund Uganda 2021 report, early learning and development in Uganda is compromised by a number of factors such as lack of preschools, lack of qualified teachers, limited awareness and appreciation of the importance of ECD, among others.

There is also a gap between caregivers who do not understand issues of early childhood development.