1. Devolved Early Childhood Education:
Challenges, Solutions and
Opportunities
Dr. Catherine Gakii Murungi
Senior Lecturer, Kenyatta University
EMAIL: gakii.catherine@ku.ac.ke
5th November, 2016

2. Challenges
There appears to be confusion as to who
should hire and manage the pre-school
teachers, teacher management is the sole
and constitutional responsibility of the
Teachers Service Commission, under article
237 of the constitution, but section 4.2.9. of
the same constitution devolves ECE to the
counties. This led to a case in the courts
since 2013 to date.

3. Challenges ……
• The DICECE officers have been on TSC payroll.
But after devolvement of ECE, TSC told these
officers to decide whether to remain with TSC,
by going back to primary schools, or, go to
counties and be paid by county governments
since early childhood was devolved to the
county governments.

4. Challenges…..
• The training of ECDE Diploma and Certificate
teachers was a responsibility of the Ministry
of Education. The county governments are
now coordinating this and it’s a big challenge
outsourcing DICECE officers to carry out
these trainings since most of them remained
with TSC and went back to classes

5. Challenges……
• The County Governments are in charge of ICT in
the counties. It is expected that children will
transit to class one and then use laptops. But
there is no clear guide for pre-school teachers, on
how to prepare children on ICT so as to ensure a
smooth transition.
According to the education reforms
recommendations, ICT will be used as a tool
for teaching, but pre-school teachers are not
trained on such skills.

6. Challenges……
• The ECD bill of 2014, is yet to be passed
into law by parliament but, this was due
to the fact that the 2006 policy was not
fully implemented, but now that we are
launching the 2016 policy around 2nd
December, we hope that implementation
will take effect as from 2017 and the bill
will be passed into Law.

7. Challenges……
• There is a challenge when allocating funds
to pre-schools from the county
governments, since unit costing for each
child at pre-school level has not been done.
There is need for the county government
through the national government to request
the ministry of planning to do the costing.
This will help in planning and budgeting.

8. Challenges ……
• Children with Special Needs:
County governments in consultation with the national
government are yet to come up with facilities and
services that are inclusive. So far the classes and toilets
that have been put up have not factored children with
limitations. Also pre-school teachers have not been
trained to handle special needs children.

9. Challenges…..
• Lack of reliable data on all pre-school age going
children, children with special needs, and those not
enrolled in pre-school education.

10. Solutions
The devolution process in Kenya has given
county governments more control over the
distribution of resources. County governments
receive budget funds for early childhood.
Through these funds user friendly pre-school
classes and toilets that take into consideration
children with special needs can be
constructed, learning materials provided and
teachers can be fully paid.

11. Solutions……
• Once classrooms and toilets are constructed, clean
water for drinking and washings hands is provided
and a clean environment is maintained, then we
can atleast improve on the health of our pre-school
children
• Providing health intervention services to pre-
schools in line with the policy . Such as vitamin A
supplementations, dental hygiene education and
de-worming children after every 3 months to
improve on the health of the pre-schoolers

12. Solutions…..
• Cost each child's education for better planning
• The county to focus on improving the level of
education by utilizing the readily available
competitive human resource. At the moment
counties are only employing caregivers, anyone
can be a caregiver whether trained or not. Yet we
have trained personnel with certificate, diploma
and degrees in ECE not yet employed. (Salary 10-
30k,not quite attractive to the qualified personnel)

13. Solutions…..
• There are no refresher courses offered for our
pre-school teachers and their tutors (the
teachers of teachers) there is need for
cascading capacity building of teachers, to
include components such as; e-learning,
incorporate skills in handling special needs
children, to update with new knowledge and
skills as well as methodologies (especially now
that the upcoming education reforms
recommends using ICT in teaching from pre-
primary all the way to upper classes).

14. Solutions….
The long term solution to lack of data, is to
ensure that all children are registered at birth
and that they are followed with the essential
packages at home and to school. This way
what needs to be identified will be
documented for planning purposes long
before the child is due to attend school.

15. Solutions….
Involve the community to ensure ownership
and sustainability of the pre-school projects or
activities
Harmonize different strategies in health and
nutrition to the education of pre-school
children and cascade it to include primary and
secondary school children

16. Solutions…..
Pre-school education is supposed to be free
and compulsory but in actual sense its not
free. County governments need to allocate
substantial amount of funds to comfortably
run the pre-schools so as to make it free the
way it should be.

17. Other solutions
• Enact and enforce legislations regarding
children’s rights (e.g. fining 100k to parents
with kids not attending pre-school
education )
• Develop an Institutional governance and
accountability framework for auditing
purposes.
• Register and give accreditation to
institutions providing ECDE services

18. Opportunities
• The draft policy authorizes parental involvement
through appointment to pre-school management
boards in all pre-schools. Previously this provision
for representation on ECDE issues was not there.
• ECDE teachers are assured of employment once
policy issues are clarified, TSC will provide terms
of service commensurate with the teachers
qualification.

19. Opportunities
• County directors of pre-school education will be
hired
• Quality assurance officers for the early childhood
section to be hired
• Pre-school teachers will be employed; starting
from diploma to degree graduates as per the
current education reforms recommendations.
Piloting will start in January 2017

20. Big idea, continued.
• Quality care will translate into children being
healthier. They will have fewer incidences of
disease. They will also have better a academic
performance and fewer school dropouts and
repetition as a result of having been exposed
to stimulating learning experiences both at
home and in the early childhood development
(ECD) centers.