Abstract:
Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) is the bedrock and foundation of all learning in the life of any child. There is a very close relationship between Early Childhood Education and schooling completion rates. It’s said that a child who goes through ECD learning successfully has higher chances of successfully going through primary and secondary education. To achieve Education for All (EFA), the Government has undertaken various measures and is instituting reforms to address challenges related to access, equity, quality and relevance. Access and Equity remain key to the government’s commitment to fighting illiteracy as well as eradicating poverty since independence. There are recorded challenges that communities have encountered in the provision of Early Childhood Education services to their children. This paper discusses the policies and practices that have been put in place to promote access and equity to Early Childhood Development Education by the government. The paper will endeavour to examine the challenges facing the implementation of the same policies as well as the challenges facing the ECDE teacher education which is key to capacity building in the ECDE sector. The paper has lots of significance to ECDE policy maker who need to enforce the ECDE policies as opposed to the way the policy is being practiced. The ECDE children stand to benefit since the policies and practice will be in tandem. The transformation of society can’t be complete if the ECDE sector appears to be forgotten; hence national development remains a dream. The worrying reality however is the constant low levels of community involvement in the implementation of the policies that concern access and equity. The paper concludes that ECDE being bedrock to the foundation of learning, serious considerations on equity, access and practice need to be enforced in order to benefit the child.
