THE FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF ECE IN NIGERIA: ALL HANDS MUST BE ON DECK

THE FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF ECE IN NIGERIA: ALL HANDS MUST BE ON DECK

By

Fowowe, S.S.

HOD, ECCE,

AOCOED & Lagos State Chairman, Association for Childhood Education Practitioners.

Introduction: Quality education at the early years of a child is very important and there is no gainsaying that these formative years impact greatly on the later life of the child and consequently community and national development.

The world of children can easily be discovered in the early years if properly taken care of No wonder the EFA Goal 1 urges all nations to “expand early childhood care and education services to all children particularly, the vulnerable and disadvantaged by 2015”

The target date is this year and both national and international efforts are being made to ensure that the goals of EFA and MDGs are realized but have they been realized?

Realizing the importance and roles of ECE in annexing the potentials of our future citizens (leaders), over 193 countries representatives in September 2015 at UN summit subscribed to another seventeen (17) Development goals titled -Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with its No 4 Goal reintrating educational for children particularly the special needs which must be all inclusive “Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong”.  The Goal No 4 and other goals can be achieved through a “virile partnerships”, suggested by SDG No 17 which prescribes that “Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development” – It translates to mean that, all hands (partnership) must ‘be on deck to achieve the policy, protocols, treaties and curriculum for preschoolers’.

It is therefore pertinent to note that a major way of chatting the future directions of ECCE program in Nigeria is to actualize the goal and ensuring that the Nigerian child’s development is holistic and to enlighten all stakeholders via orientations, advocacy and development of capacity building for the handlers him/her. It is when the handlers and other stakeholders have the competencies to effectively educate the children at this level that the future of the programme can be guaranteed. To this end, this presentation, having realized the importance and necessity of synergizing efforts and expertise by the stakeholders, suggest ways for the future directions of ECCE in Nigeria.

Basics of Early Childhood Care and Education

Children, without any iota of exaggeration, are our collective future. It therefore becomes instructive and imperative that appropriate care, stimulation and development of them is given utmost attention so that they will grow well and become responsible adults. The quality of care and education children receive determines the quality of life they will have on later years (UBEC 2013). It become necessary if the nation desires quality head start to life for her children, to embrace “all caps fit it option” which is recommended in sustainable Development Goal No. 17.

For clarity purposes, early childhood care and education covers aspects of a child’s life such as infant stimulation, health and nutrition, early childhood education, physical development, socialization and intellectual development among others. The training at this level is target at effecting developmental changes in the child. This fundamental knowledge of child care and stimulation is essential for all the stakeholders as this will help them provide the much needed support that a child needs for his development and general well-being.

A brief explanation of some key words in Early childhood programme will help the readership to understand the concept of ECCDE and what it is all about:

·         Early childhood

·         Care

·         Development; and

·         Education.

·         Early childhood: This is a period of a child’s life from conceptions to age eight, however, in Nigeria, it is the period between 0-5years. These years are critical to the holistic development of the child. Most importantly at this level, is all about the experiences a child has in the transition to primary education. Because what is learnt prior to primary school needs to be sustained for the child to do well in later life.

·         Care: This aspect starts from conception to age five or eight as the case may be. Careful action should be taken to ensure the protection and support for the health, nutrition, physical, psycho-social, cognitive, emotional, spiritual and moral development of the child via balanced diet, affectionate interaction etc

·         Development: It is the gradual process of change in the child which is exhibited physically, mentally, socio-emotionally, spiritually and morally. Developmental change may take place as a result of genetically controlled processes of maturation or consequences of environmental factors and learning. In most cases, according to Evans et al (2000), development involves an interaction between the two.

·         Education: In this context, learning begins from birth and during this period, the child’s experiences help him/her to acquire knowledge skills, habits and values. Therefore, attempts to bring children at an early age to the formal school system calls for special attention on the form of knowledge that are most appropriate to their level of development.

For the teachers/caregivers and other stake holders in the business of early childhood education, it is instructive and imperative to acquaint themselves with the different aspects of structure and curriculum needed to be acquired by children 0-5years.

Different aspects of Early Childhood

The different aspects of ECCDE include:

·         Language development;

·         Moral and Spiritual development;

·         Cognitive development;

·         Socio-emotional development;

·         Physical development; and

·         Creativity and aesthetics development.

Future Directions of ECCE in Nigeria: Efforts Needed.

“If foundation is faulty what will be righteous do, the righteous will start to mend fences”.

Education starts from the cradle and catching them young with quality education remains a veritable tool to lifelong development. The future of a nation’s socio-economic and political wellbeing greatly lies with the right quality of children’s education, because they are the future leaders. If they have a faulty foundation as regards to education, it will definitely affect their lives in the future and invariably affect the community and the nation at large.

The future of the programme can only be guaranteed if “all hands” are on deck to ensure its smooth interpretation and implementation. The following are proposed in this paper:

·         Institutionalization of ECCDE programme into universal Basic Education programme in all States of the federation. This should be followed by policy statement and policy implementation at all primary schools in the same states.

·         Dumping of poor models- over the years, several alternative approaches, methodics and strategies have been proposed to the teaching of pre-schoolers but the poor models according to Ashimolowo (2015) still stick. It is observed that the traditional way of teaching children by rote-learning and memorization will not and cannot help children understand any concept, rather will the trend make them compete with their peers in developed countries.

Policy and Act Issues: The major policy documents and Act on ECCE need to be understood, interpreted and implemented by the stakeholders and the practitioners. Those documents to be considered are:

·         Child rights Act (2003)

·         National Policy on Education NPE (2004)

·         Universal Basic Education Act (2004)

·         Integrated Early Childhood Development (IECD) policy (2007);

·         National Maximum Standard (2007);

·         National Integrated Curriculum for Early Childhood Development (2007).

The documents xrays the following salient points:

ü  list the basic requirements of establishing an ECCDE Centre;

ü  list the stakeholders in the implementation of IECD in the child Rights Act;

ü  state the scope of the UBE programme

ü  mention some themes in the National Childhood Curriculum for Ages 0-5.

For avoidance of doubt and clarification purposes, the synopsis of the policy documents is reproduced below:

The Child Rights Act:

The Child Rights Act was enacted in 2003 in response to the call for the domestication of the Convention on Rights of the Child (1989). The Act provides for and protects the Rights of the Nigerian child, and considers the interest of the child as paramount in all actions.

The document prescribes the Rights and responsibilities of the child as well as protection of the Rights. Among the Rights prescribed are:

·         Right to survival and development;

·         Right to freedom of movement;

·         Right to a name;

·         Right to health and health services;

·         Right to parental care, protection and maintenance;

·         Right of a child to free, compulsory and universal primary education;

·         Right to freedom from discrimination;

·         Right to leisure, recreation and cultural services;

·         Right to freedom of association; etc  

The National Policy on Education (NPE)

The policy is the pivot on which the education in Nigeria revolves. The policy recognizes the education of children between ages 0- 5 as ECCDE. It defines it as the care, protection, stimulation and learning promoted in children from age 0-5 years in a crèche, nursery or kindergarten.

Government roles, according to the Policy are to:

a)         Set and monitor minimum standards for ECCDE centres;

b)        Establish ECCDE sections in public schools and encourage both community and private efforts in its provision based on set standards;

c)        Make provision in teacher education programmes for specialization in ECCDE and for retraining of teachers;

d)        Ensure that the curriculum of teacher education is oriented towards play method;

e)        Ensure that ECCDE centres adopt the following caregiver infant ratio as: (I) crèche 1: 10 (ii) Nursery and Kindergarten 1 :25

f)        Develop suitable ECCDE curriculum for nationwide implementation;

g)        Supervise and control quality of ECCDE institutions; ,

h)        Make provision for the production and effective utilization of learning and instructional materials in adequate numbers;

i)         Ensure that the medium of instruction is principally the mother-tongue or the language of immediate community; and to this end will:

            -   develop the orthography of more Nigerian languages, and

- produce textbooks, supplementary readers and other instructional materials in Nigerian languages.

The UBE Act

Government’s concern to drastically reduce illiteracy within the shortest possible time and its desire to achieve Education for All (EFA) target and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) prompted the establishment of the Universal Basic Education Programme (UBEP) in 1999.

The Act giving the Programme a legal backing was promulgated in 2004 and consequently, a Commission known as Universal Basic Education Commission ~ (UBEC) was set up to coordinate the implementation of the programme. The Federal Government also committed 2% of its Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to the implementation of the programme.

Objectives of the UBE Programme are itemized below:

i.          Developing in the entire citizenry a strong consciousness for education and a strong commitment to its vigorous promotion;

ii.         The provision of Free, Universal Basic Education for every Nigerian child of school age:

iii.        Reducing drastically the incidence of dropout from formal school system through improved relevance, quality and efficiency;

iv.        Ensuring the acquisition of the appropriate levels of literacy, numeracy, communicative and life skills as well as the ethical moral and civic values needed for laying a solid foundation for lifelong learning.

National Policy for Integrated Early Childhood Development (lECD) in Nigeria

The care and support received by a child is multi faceted: health, water, sanitation, nutrition, protection, psycho-social as well as educational. This is to say Early Childhood Care, Development and Education is multi sectoral. This policy is therefore to bring together all stakeholders involved in the support and care of the child. I

Policy goal of IECD

The goal is to expand, universalize and integrate interventions from various sectors in early child development for effective implementation and coordination of programmes that will optimize development for children of ages 0 to 5 years in Nigeria. I

Objectives of IECD

Major objectives of IECD are to:

i.          provide care and support that will ensure the right of the child to:

·         Good nutrition and health;

·         Healthy and safe environment;

·         psycho-social stimulation; and

·         Protection and participation.

ii.         inculcate in the child the spirit of inquiry and creativity through the exploration of nature, the environment, art, music and playing with toys;

iii.        integration of Quranic system into IECD;  

iv.        effect a smooth transition from the home to the school;

Stakeholders in IECD

The major stakeholders in IECD have their roles and responsibilities which will help achieve the goals and bring about effectiveness in the IECD policy implementation. The stakeholders are:  

·         parents and care givers; ,

·         head teachers/teachers;

·         community members and leaders;

·         religious groups and leaders;

·         relevant Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MD As) such as Education, Women Affairs, Health, Agriculture, Internal Affairs, Information and National Orientation, Environment and Sanitation, Water.

·         Resources and Justice;

·         Local Government;

·         private sector organizations;

·         International Development Partners (IDPs);

·         the media;

·         policy makers and legislators.

(Refer to the IECD Policy for further information on roles and responsibilities of stakeholders.)

Minimum Standards for Early Child Care Centres in Nigeria

Early Child Care Centres in Nigeria are of different types. They include:

·         Day care/crèche (0 - 2 years)

·         Pre-nursery/play group (3 - 4years).

·         Nursery/Kindergarten 3-5years)

All these centres may exist together or independently and may be-home based, centre based or mobile. In establishing any of these types, there are, prescribed minimum standards needed to be fulfilled in order to ensure' an all- round development of the child.

Characteristics of an effective centre

In establishing an effective ECCDE centre, it is important to ensure that the environment is safe, secure and free from excessive noise. An effective centre should have:

·         play ground and appropriate equipment;

·         fence;

·         classroom(s) with enough space (well ventilated adequate for about 20 -25 (0 - 3 years), 30 - 35 (3 - 5 years) children with flexible sitting arrangement and well decorated with functional pictures);

·         records such as admission register, log book, child folder containing biodata etc;

·         age appropriate furniture;

·         cupboards, shelves, mats, mattresses etc;

·         assessment instrument for growth and overall development of the child.

·         other requirements are water, hygienic environment, psycho-social care, early learning, health (first aid box, fire extinguisher or bucket of sand), age appropriate toilet, safety measures etc.

The National Early Childhood Curriculum for Ages 0-5 Years

The recognition of ECCDE in the system of education in Nigeria means there should be proper planning for the programme such that the children in this category will have proper and qualitative head start.

The development of this curriculum was pioneered by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) and the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNlCEF). The curriculum has been divided into two sections of 0- 3 years and 3-5 years.

The content of the curriculum has been divided into 8 themes as follows:

ü  Physical development;

ü  Affective/psycho-social development;

ü  Cognitive development;

ü  Food and Nutrition;

ü  Health;

ü  Water and Environmental Sanitation;

ü  Safety measures; and

ü  Protection.

Under each theme, there are specific topics which have been broken into performance objectives, contents, activities, learning materials and evaluation guide.

There are appendices to help caregivers to monitor and assess development of the child. These are:

Appendix 1 – Developmental milestones; and

Appendix 2 – Early Childhood Screening Tool

Caregivers are advised to familiarize themselves with all the policy documents as these documents will enhance their performance in the centres.

Methods/Methodics/Strategies – The National Policy on Education (2004) is clear on the prescribed method to teach children at this level “the main, method of teaching at the nursery level is play”.

But observation and researches have recently shown that the recommended method, play, is not in use in most of the ECE centres (Ashimolowo; Orisabinoe & Akeredolu, 2015). The researchers ascribed the cause of non-use of the method to lack of qualified and trained professionals in our pre-schools. Even where there are NCE graduates teaching at this level, they are still without specialization in Early Childhood Education or any allied course.

Teacher Trainers- The teachers of teacher for pre-primary should step-up their pre-service training in compliance with international standard and policy documents like IECD, National Minimum Standard, National Integrated Curriculum for Early Childhood Development 0-5 and National Minimum Standards for Colleges of Education, because that is the only way the set objectives and the future of this programmes can be guaranteed.

Continuous Professional Development – Life itself is dynamic so is education, one can not teach today with yesterday’s skills and knowledge, therefore, it is imperative to re-train the teachers/caregivers so as to fit in with the new trends.

Regulatory Bodies – Those charged with regulatory responsibilities and accreditation roles should live up to expectation. It took NCCE years before she realized the importance of early childhood education in the colleges of education. Not until 2009 before she could release a public document on ECCE. Even at that, deserves commendation and a path at the back because its counterpart, NUC, up till now, has not deem it fit to provide the universities, a unified policy/curriculum document. Only few universities offer Early Childhood education at their undergraduate programme, so where will the manpower at “higher level” be produced?

This paper is charging those at the helms of affairs of the universities to do something urgent in ensuring that undergraduate degree programme in ECE is introduced. It is worthy to note that some universities and colleges of education via their affiliate programmes offer what is similar to ECE but not totally ECE in nature. Where it exists, it is called and offered as Nursery and Primary Education (NPE), whereas the curriculum content of the Nursery aspect does not contain elements of Early Childhood Education. The paper recommends a total overhauling of the existing curriculum to include elements of Early Childhood, if they don’t want to change the nomenclature to ECE.

Content Perspective: Early Childhood Care and Education as the name implies, is not to cover the education aspect alone. There is another important aspect CARE dimension to the programme (80%) that is being neglected by the practitioners which is dangerous if the trend continues. In the actual sense, the learning aspect dimension of the programme ECCE is infinitential compared to the CARE aspect. The diagram below will suffice

The programme is not about mastery of numbers, letters of alphabet, states and capital, colours, shape and forms, verbal and quantitative reasoning etc, It includes learning of good habits, health habits, safety measures, communication skills, courtesies, development of milestones etc.

The NERDC curriculum for 0-5years breaks it down into WHAT, HOW and WHERE to teach the contents. So, practitioners should avail themselves the opportunity to get a copy and study for implementation.

Conclusion: For our nation to meet up with the international standards required of any ECE practitioner, the perception and realities there in the paper should be internalized and implemented because that is the only way, the future of ECCE programme can be guaranteed. Let all stakeholders – government, at all levels, UBEC, SUBEBs, NGOs, Colleges of Education, Universities and the chief implementers of the programme, teachers and caregivers, rise up, synergize where necessary to do their parts by playing roles expected of them. The Nigerian child can no longer wait to seeing his peers from other developed countries developing holistically without same expectations from Nigeria.

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