The inability of state governments to fund early childhood development (ECD) centres, among other factors, has increased the numbers of out-of-school kids. FRANK IKPEFAN reports.
FIVE-year-old Abubakar Ibrahim sat under a tree. He stared into space, dejected and disappointed over where fate had left him. He watched as other children roamed the expansive land housing Magaji Abdullahi Early Childhood Care Development (ECCD) Centre in Shagari Local Government Area, Sokoto State.
He was supposed to be in the facility learning. But, on the contrary, fate condemned him into playing in the sand. Indeed, Abubakar was in a school environment, but was not learning.
The boy was joined by another kid, a girl – Maimuna Mohammed. They both stared at the other kids who were on the playground during their break – an indication that their parents didn’t enrol them at the centre.
Like Abubakar and Maimuna, thousands of children in Nigeria, especially those from poor homes, are missing out on early childhood education.
The Federal Government, in 2007, introduced a National Policy for Integrated Early Childhood Development to guide the implementation of Early Childhood Education in Nigeria.
The aim of the policy was to ensure that children in their formative years received all- round care that would help the cognitive, physical, social, moral, and emotional development of the child.
The policy entails using a multi-sectoral approach comprising education, health, nutrition and protection to nurture and teach children within 0-5 years in a classroom environment.
Experts warned that whenever children are deprived of quality primary education, they are at risk of having a damaged foundation.
A future on a shaky ground
But figures from the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS 2021) showed that a lot of children in Nigeria are being denied this basic foundational development by not receiving early childhood education.
According to the MICS, only 35.6 per cent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education in Nigeria.
At least 10 million children are not enrolled, the United Nations Children’s Fund said.
Children from the north are on the receiving end of this, leading to fears that Nigeria may just be arming another set of out-of-school children to join the ones already on the streets.
The data showed that states like Borno (10.1), Bauchi (5.6), Sokoto (5.9), Zamfara (3.8); Yobe (5.3), Kebbi (3.5) and Katsina (9.7) have low early education enrolment rates that are between three per cent and 10 per cent.
According to the MICS 2021, only 11.9 per cent of children aged 36-59 months from the Northeast are in early childhood education classes; 12.8 in the Northwest; and 38.0 in Northcentral.
This is compared to 74.5 in Southwest; 72.3 in Southeast and 68.1 in the Southsouth region.
Country Director, Early Childhood Development Initiative, Dr. Amy Panyi, said there was a need for parents to enrol their children for early childhood education.
She said: “That child’s right to education has been denied him. They are the ones we call the street boys – the Almajiris who we are trying to rehabilitate and bring back to school. There are some of them; based on culture that will stay at home until they reach a certain age.
“Enrolling these children in school still depends on the community leaders. When they come to PTA meetings, they can enlighten the parents about bringing their children to school. They can also check their neighbourhood to see if there are parents that their children are not in school. They should try to educate them because it is a role for all of us to play to ensure that children are not denied the right to be in school.”
How poverty, ignorance of parents deny children of early education
Early childhood education is an aspect of basic education. It covers the pre-primary stage of the child and prepares the child for the formative years.
The Federal Government, through the Universal Basic Education Commission, set aside certain per cent of funds for this purpose. The states, through the State Universal Basic Education Boards, are expected to use these funds to develop ECD centres in their states.
The funds are expected to be used to build structures for ECCD, provide learning materials for pupils and teachers and capacity development for ECD teachers.
Despite basic education being free for the first nine years, ignorance of parents, poverty and economic status of some families have kept most children out of early education classes.
For example, figures from the MICS 2021 showed that only 11. 3 per cent of children aged 36-59 months from poor homes are attending early childhood education; compared to 75.2 per cent of children within the same age bracket from rich homes.
While 22.7 per cent of children aged 36- 59 months for second class income earners are enrolled in early childhood centres; 39.9 per cent for children from middle income homes are attending ECD classes and 58.7 per cent for children from fourth income homes.
An Early Childhood Educator, Confidence Okonkwo, said: “The reasons most of our children are not in ECD classes is because of poverty, economic status of the family, the educational level of the parents – some don’t know the importance of early childhood education.
“Most parents from this side (North) do not know the importance of early childhood development while some because of religion do not send their children to school. Rather, they send them to Islamiyya – they leave their children in the hands of Mallams. From there the children may not even come back to their parents.
“Also, the economic status of some parents; poverty is another reason why some parents don’t send their children to school. Inasmuch as education is free, most parents do not yet understand this.”
In Sokoto, awareness on early childhood education still low.
Data from the MICS showed that awareness on early childhood education was still low in Sokoto State.
According to the figure, only 5.9 per cent of children aged 36 – 59 months are enrolled in early childhood centres in the state.
Director, Early Child Care Development, Sokoto State SUBEB, Faruk Umar said: “Some parents are still to reach them. There need to be awareness creation so that parents and community members are fully informed on the importance of education.
“That is why we have our medium term strategy – a plan for basic education in the state. In the last two weeks, we were in a meeting for five days where we reviewed the plan and incorporated a lot of sensitisation activities under the ECCD to ensure that more awareness is created in the ECCD sub-sector.
“In each of our primary school, there supposed to be ECD centres.”
Also, the Country Director, Early Childhood Development Initiative, said: “The state should arrange and pay parents who don’t bring their children to the centres to find out why because some of them may not have the little token they are supposed to pay. I know most of the schools are free but at the same time, there is supposed to be a follow-up within the community.
“The headmistress or the person in charge of the school should try to do some community awareness; tell them when children should come to school.”
UNICEF: weak coordination, poor funding reducing gains of early childhood education
The UNICEF Sokoto Chief of Field Office, Mrs. Maryam Darwesh, said low awareness and understanding of the importance of ECD, poor articulation and clarity of the policy, weak coordination among relevant agencies and poor funding have reduced the gains expected from the Federal Government’s policy.
Darwesh explained that children who go through ECD activities are more successful in school later on and are more competent socially and emotionally.
She noted that such children exhibit higher verbal, intellectual and physical development in early childhood than those who are not enrolled formally in such programmes.
Darwesh said: “UNICEF considers early childhood the most rapid and critical period of development in human life. Development of the brain in the early years is a pathway that affects physical and mental health, learning, and behaviour throughout the life cycle.
“Although individual children develop at their own pace, all children progress through an identifiable sequence of physical, cognitive and emotional growth.”
Give priority to early child education, expert tells govts
UNICEF Education Specialist, Yetunde Oluwatosin, emphasised the need for leaders to prioritise early childhood education in the country.
She warned that early childhood as a critical period can make or mar a child’s economic outcome and contribution to society, stressing that the period must be consciously developed to contribute to the child’s early transformation.
Speaking at the Media Dialogue on Early Child Education (ECE) in Nigeria organised by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with UNICEF, Oluwatosin said: “Research has shown that children who attend ECE perform better in academics and have greater earning potential as they grow over the years.”
Oluwatosin, however, warned that the challenges of early childhood education in Nigeria are systemic, especially, considering the quality of the workforce, teaching and learning materials or even infrastructure.
“In Nigeria, only one in three children, totalling 36 per cent, attend early childhood classes but at least 10 million children are not enrolled.
“It has been observed that large inequalities persist between the poorest children and the richest children’s ECE attendance rate translating to eight per cent and 87 per cent.
“What this means is that children of the rich continue to take advantage of the benefits of ECE for greater performance in future while children of the poor remain passive,” she said.
She advocated a child-centred method and space to be given to learners to thrive.
“We also need to strengthen the roles of parents as the first educator of the child, provide adequate funding for pre-primary education, build the capacity of teachers and provide adequate curriculum for ECE.
“If you look at it, from the 2018 National Personnel Audit (NPA) of BEC, we have over seven million learners but 154,000 teachers.
“This pupils/teachers ratio is low and we must do something to improve this. This disparity is there and we are still far behind in achieving the SDG goals,” she added.
*Reporting done as part of YouthHubAfrica Basic Education Media Fellowship 2022.