Factors affecting maintenance of early Childhood development education infrastructure In Vihiga district, Kenya

Abstract

The challenge of providing adequate early childhood education in Sub-Saharan Africa is huge. Early interventions in early childhood development education (ECDE) are significant to the social and economic development of a country as they provide children with a fairer and better start in life. In Kenya, the trend of development in education system has steadily risen over the years and many changes are still taking place. The introduction of Free Primary Education in 2002 caused a tremendous increase in enrolment in primary schools and this made the government to establish a document in 2005-the Kenya Sector Support Programme (KESSP) to give grants to poor communities in support of school infrastructure. Therefore, this study attempted to look at the scope of school infrastructure and maintenance programmes in different countries and tried to relate them with the factors affecting maintenance of ECDE infrastructure in Vihiga District, Vihiga County in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors affecting maintenance of ECDE infrastructure in public ECDE and feeder centers in Vihiga district. The findings were derived from the following study objectives; To examine the level at which government policy guidelines affect maintenance of ECDE infrastructure; To assess the extent to which funding affect maintenance of ECDE infrastructure, and lastly; To establish the level at which community' cooperation affect maintenance of ECDE infrastructure; To examine the level at which facility conditions affect maintenance of Early Childhood Education infrastructure. Vihiga District was the case for this study having benefited partially from the government grant. Information got from DrCECE coordinator showed that only 27 ECDE centers had benefitted from the government community support grant. The study will be significant to managers, administrators, teachers and other stakeholders of early childhood education. The target population was 130 public ECDE centers and feeder centers in Vihiga District. The sample size was 52 public ECDE centers and feeder centers in Vihiga District which made 40% of the population size. Questionnaires were administered to 52 respondents and there was a return rate of 50(96.15%). The basic assumption was that poor conditions of early childhood education infrastructure in some ECDE centers in Vihiga district, was due to factors affecting maintenance. Descriptive statistic that included frequencies and percentages was adapted to meaningfully analyze both qualitative and quantitative data to ascertain completeness and uniformity of the responses. Study findings indicated that there were no specific policy guidelines to guide on maintenance. Funding was found to be a major challenge in maintenance of infrastructure. Community participation in ECDE maintenance programmes was found to be very minimal. Observation carried out showed that most ECDE centers had inadequate facilities and that they were not consistently maintained. Most facilities were shared with the primary schools and needed over whole renovation or new construction. The study conclusion was that, government investment in this sector as compared to other education sectors was minimal. The recommendations of the study were that; the government of Kenya should revise policy framework and funding in ECDE sector. Finally the study suggested that the findings can be used as a bench mark to guide EDCE managers and educational planners in evaluating the situation of facility conclitions and come up with well planned infrastructure maintenance programmes .The study should be a contribution for further studies on maintenance of infrastructure especially in public primary schools that have been allocated government fund ing through FPE.