By Christopher Omondi
Early childhood development and education was structured mainly to equip young children with foundational social, emotional and cognitive skills for lifelong learning through play and nurturing. They are also tasked to build children’s awareness and encourage creativity. In my community of Kondele ward in Kisumu County, the promises made to the ECDE by the current County government is still not effective, mostly in Kosawo ECDE, Manyatta ECDE and Obinju ECDE, which are the main public ECDEs in Kondele ward.
In 2023, the County government of Kisumu passed the implementation of Early Childhood Education Act [ECD Act 2023], which was meant to amend the Early Childhood Education Act, No. 3 of 2021, to mandate the county government to provide for the welfare of early childhood education and teachers in public schools.
The ECDE Act, 2023, main provisions include: Exploring a country-wide hot meal program, establishing a system for administration of childcare services and early years education, it recognizes and regulating home-based childcare as a model, all these of course, within Kisumu County.
As of today, the bill is yet to be passed to law as the county is still making preparation for the implementation of the ECD Act 2023 as a dedicated committee is presumed to be working on it’s rollout to align with the Act’s goals of promoting child health, nutrition and responsive caregiving. The County partnered with various non-governmental organizations such as; Catholic Relief Services, PATH, KMET, SOS Children’s Villages and Cheshire Disability Services Kenya.
For the public there has been a huge outcry over the slow movements in ensuring that the ECD Act 2023 is successfully implemented with just less than two years left for the current regime to exit office as many are claiming that the county government has failed to deliver on it’s promises and thus using time to avoid accountability. “most ECDE’s still require kids to carry Kshs. 15 for lunch, other schools like Obinju ECDE lack even sufficient playgroup equipment to support the activities in the curriculum, said Duncan Oyugi, who is a parent.
With the public to presuming intentional delays over the implementation of the ECD Act 2023, it’s now all on the appointed committee members as 2025 has been identified as the year for finalizing regulations and moving forward with the implementation.
