Early Childhood Care and Education in Rural Ethiopia: Current Practices, New Initiatives, and Pilot Programs

Abstract

This study examines the current urban and private-based modern
practices of early childhood care and education and the traditional priest
schools, the new (Zero-Grades and Child-to-Child) initiatives of the Ministry of
Education launched in a bid to improve access, and the civil societies-initiated
preschool programs that are under piloting in rural Ethiopia. While the existing
urban-based Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) was arguably
presented to be externally introduced and had western orientation in many
ways, the priest schools, Zero-Grades, and Child-to-Child, despite several
implementation constraints that surround them, were believed to be
contextually relevant, feasible, scalable and sustainable in many ways. On
the other hand, the civil societies-initiated pilot ECCEs seemed to stretch the
features of urban-based ECCEs to a rural setting and, hence, were found to
be expensive, less responsive to local realities, and seemed to have less
prospect for sustainability. It was suggested that the future of rural ECCEs
rather be envisioned within the framework of low-cost and context responsive
programs conveniently encompassing priest schools, Zero-Grades, and new
kebele-initiated preschools in every woreda such that Child-to-Child initiative
be used in conjunction with each of them so as to augment their outcomes.
Civil societies were also suggested to work towards supporting such
initiatives in different ways rather than working to create model ECCEs not
aligned with rural realities