A new report by Usawa Agenda has revealed a sharp decline in Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) teachers in Kenya, even as more children continue to enroll in schools.
The number of ECDE teachers dropped from 92,359 in 2019 to 69,561 in 2022, a major concern for the sector.
The report also shows that student enrolment in ECDE centres rose by nearly 5% between 2018 and 2021, with more than 32,000 public ECDE centres currently in operation compared to 15,000 private ones.
Although ECDE is managed by counties, the national government still plays a key role in providing policy guidelines, curriculum, and technical support.
“Significant investment is growing in ECDE, attracting major funders like the LEGO Foundation, Conrad Hilton Foundation, Echidna Giving, and FCDO,” the report stated.
It added that collaboration with these funders can boost efforts to nurture “citizens of the future.”
However, access to ECDE remains uneven across the country. Nationally, 7.4% of children join Grade 1 without attending any ECDE programme. This number rises to 8.4% in rural areas compared to 6.2% in urban areas.
Counties like Mandera (51.4%) and Marsabit (33.3%) have the lowest ECDE access, while Kisumu (1.3%) and Nakuru (1.8%) lead in coverage.
Among Grade 1 learners and above, 7.5% of boys and 7.4% of girls have never attended ECDE. Children with disabilities are slightly less likely to have ECDE experience (7.2%) than those without disabilities (7.4%).
The report also exposes serious challenges in learning outcomes. Only 4 in 10 Grade 4 learners can read and understand a Grade 3-level English story.
The situation worsens in Grade 6, where 3 in 10 learners struggle with the same. In North Eastern Kenya, only 2 in 10 Grade 4 pupils can comprehend a Grade 3 English story.
Learners in rural and Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) consistently perform worse than their peers in urban and non-ASAL regions. The report links these disparities to weak ECDE foundations.
“Children who attended preschool before joining primary school are 9% more likely to perform better in Maths and 18% more likely to perform better in English than those who didn’t,” the report noted.
It also found that many teachers in public junior secondary schools are overstretched, handling multiple subjects — including ones they are not trained for. Only 21% of teachers are trained in STEM subjects, and 35% of schools lack even a single STEM teacher.
Access to learning resources is another major hurdle. Only 48% of learners in public junior secondary schools have access to laboratories, a key factor contributing to poor science performance.
The report further shows stark differences in the quality of education based on school type. Special schools recorded the lowest KCSE results. The type of secondary school a learner attends now has a bigger impact on KCSE results than their earlier KCPE marks.
While 92.1% of national schools offer computer lessons, only 17.3% of sub-county schools provide the same. This wide gap highlights growing concerns about equality and readiness for the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) rollout.
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