TSC should be hiring tutors for pre-school

According to the World Bank, investing in the early years is one of the smartest things a country can do. Early childhood experiences have a profound impact on brain development—affecting learning, health, behaviour and, ultimately, lifetime opportunities. 

However, millions of young children are not reaching their full potential mainly due to inadequate nutrition, lack of early stimulation, learning, nurturing care and exposure to stress that adversely affects their development.

The world over, only 60 per cent of all three-to-six-year-olds have access to pre-primary education. In low-income countries, just one in five children have access to pre-school. But there are countries with quality pre-schools. France, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are examples of countries with high-quality public early childhood education programmes that are open to all children.

The early childhood development education (ECDE) programme in Kenya is associated with the holistic development of children up to five years old. Prior to the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution, ECDE facilities were under the Ministry of Education and tutors of this cadre were some of the most neglected. 

Then, the teachers were employed by parents and paid between Sh800 and Sh2,000, depending on the number of pupils under their tutelage. Nowadays, they are employed by the counties with improved terms of service.

There were contestations in the past on who should hire these teachers. Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) moved to court in 2014 and protested the action of county governments to directly employ ECDE tutors. And in one of the proposals in the ongoing reforms in the education sector, governors are opposed to ECDE teachers being employed by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), which employs teachers in primary and secondary schools.

However, I feel that this mandate should be handed to TSC. First, the ECDE centres are mainstreamed in primary schools, based on Sessional Paper No. 1 of 2005. The policy framework on “Education, Training and Research” made it clear that, by 2010, the ECDE programme should be mainstreamed into primary education.

This has seen teachers work in the same environment; they should, therefore, be under one employer. Notably, that will not affect the devolution of ECDE because, inasmuch as the county governments have been mandated with the responsibility of hiring ECDE tutors for many years, they won’t lose specific mandate in all aspects of pre-primary education—save for registration of teachers, which is proposed to be given to TSC.

Secondly, ECDE tutors deserve much better terms of service. Chances are, they will enjoy enhanced perks under TSC, which will motivate them, leading to better performance. Lastly, all teachers will be under the same umbrella with similar rules and regulations as well as promotion criteria.

Dr Kapkiai, PhD, is a lecturer in the school of Education and Human Resource Development at Kisii University. [email protected].