EXCERPTS:
Way back in the year 2000 in the city of Dakar, Senegal, a declaration was made by some 164 countries of the world to commit themselves to ensuring that meaningful education was provided to all by the year 2015. It is less than 24 months to that dead line. The Dakar conferences etched out six goals that needed to be achieved. Parties to the declaration were to work towards: provision of early childhood care and education to all children below school going age; achieving universal primary education; meeting youth and adult learning needs; improving levels of adult literacy; assessing gender parity and equality in education, and raising quality of education. Each of these goals was affixed with a policy focus. This was to serve as a guide to the realisation of the set goal.
The six policy focus points were defined as, (i) preparing children for school by expanding pre-primary education, (ii) reduce costs of primary school for the poorest children, and (iii) acknowledging that life skills education can help tackle HIV and AIDS. Another key policy focus by member countries was to ensure the strengthening of adult literacy in rich countries, and to challenge disadvantage and disengagement among boys in secondary schools. The final policy focus had to do with addressing the crisis in early grade teaching. And in its tenth edition of the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) of 2012, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) indicated that ‘There has been undeniable progress towards the six EFA goals - including an expansion of early childhood care and education ... However, with (less than two) years to go until the 2015 deadline, the world is still not on track..' This statement is as true in the global viewpoint as it is in particular countries like Zambia. For much as education for all is a universal aspiration, it is the efforts of individual countries that will make education for all achievable.
The first goal of Education for All is aimed at raising conditions that support early childhood and pre-school education. There is a greater urgency in ensuring that there is equitable access to pre-school education by children below the school going age. Early child care and education encompasses aspects of nutrition and emotional support to enhance the whole round development of a child. The Patriotic Front manifesto has some vague statements on how they intend to jack up the provision of pre-school education. Three somewhat general statements are the only indicators of intent on pre-school education. These declarations are to: streamline the operations of the early childhood education sector; provide and facilitate early childhood education centres and teachers in all local government wards in Zambia, and thirdly, provide teacher training at diploma and degree levels in early childhood education.
The GMR indicates that as at the close of 2012 progress towards achieving the goal on early childhood education has been slow. In some cases the momentum that was witnessed in the first few years after Dakar, has died down. In Zambia there does not appear clear evidence of change of gear in the provision of pre-school education. The growth that has been registered at that stage of education has been mainly due to private initiative. Even then, the kind of facilities offered, save in exclusive kindergartens, are mostly basic or none at all. Homes, at the most, have served as infrastructure for pre-schools and, with no space for play grounds, children are restricted to little rooms - singing, drawing and reciting nursery rhymes.
Most of Zambia's efforts in this area so far have been in training of teachers. There are hardly any government pre-schools. A few colleges of education offer training in early education and most recently even degree courses are being offered at some universities. And with pre-school education largely in the hands of private individuals or organisations, this kind of education becomes inaccessible to the poor on account of cost or simply not being available within localities.
One component of the goal on early education is that of child care. With high poverty levels amongst most people globally as well as in the Zambian context, children from poor families are hungry. The GMR indicates that children who are hungry become malnourished or ill and are not able to gain the skills needed for later learning. Early childhood health, therefore, is of great essence, and in a country where mothers have attained very low levels of education high mortality rates are likely to be recorded.
The GMR on EFA signposts that underinvestment by governments is the key reason for low availability of pre-school education to the poor. In Zambia, whilst a number of pre-schools have been opened by individuals, often there is not enough done to improve the facilities for use by the children. A typical pre-school in Zambia will have a few, plastic furniture, one of each of the following: a see-saw, a slide and a couple of swings, and may be a sandpit. Toys are gotten from traders in second hand items with the one-man proprietor reserving the monopoly to charge whatever fees they find ‘competitive'. So for the Zambian government to ensure that all children gain from pre-school, reforms are needed, including expanding facilities and making sure early education is affordable; identifying appropriate ways to link pre-schools with primary schools, and coordinating pre-school activities with wider early childhood interventions.
Since the goal on child care and early education is underpinned on three components of health, nutrition and education, there is need to adopt integrated approaches in investments in which maternal and child health, proper nutrition and early education are seen as having equal importance in the development of a child. There is evidence in support of efforts towards child health in Zambia through various health campaigns. But it is hard to enumerate any serious efforts that are directed at pre-school education. This must be admitted.
We do not seem to be earnestly addressing the policy focus which is that of preparing children for school by expanding pre-primary education; the kind which is government driven, accessible and affordable to everyone. The promises made in Dakar should not be broken even for a single poor child wherever they may be in Zambia. Action by government, with greater urgency, can ensure the promise on child care and early education is kept especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged child. Greater levels of financial investment directed at infrastructure development coupled with better coordination of pre-school education are just as critical for Zambia as they are imperative.
Chatting Education will underscore the fact that studies have shown (as documented in the GMR) that ‘... the more time children spend in pre-school, the better their performance in school. Recent evidence based on the 2009 survey in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that in 58 of 65 countries, 15-year-old students who had attended at least a year of pre-primary school outperformed students who had not, even after accounting for socio-economic background. In countries including Australia, Brazil and Germany, the average benefit after controlling for socio-economic background was equivalent to one year of schooling'.
Further, the report suggests that ‘Legislation which makes pre-school compulsory can increase enrolment if it is complemented with measures that expand supply. Pre-primary education is compulsory in very few countries... Compulsory pre-school was introduced in Mexico in 2001 for children aged three to five (Vegas and Santibáñez, 2010), and the gross enrolment ratio expanded from 73 percent in 1999 to 101 percent in 2010. This growth was accomplished by increasing the numbers of classrooms and teachers. Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country with compulsory pre-primary education, passed legislation in 2007/08 to include two years of kindergarten in compulsory basic education starting from age four.'
The Zambian Government may wish to examine such models and accept that initially there is need for a deliberate effort to create capacity for children to attend pre-schools and then consider formulation of legislation making pre-school attendance compulsory. Government may also wish to give consideration to attaching a pre-school section to the existing primary schools. This is what may be practicable as opposed to hoping to merely operationalise ‘early childhood centres in wards' as espoused in the PF manifesto. A matter for Zambia to toil with; to seriously think about!
-reprinted from the Zambia Daily Mail