KANO (North-West, Nigeria) — In it bids to support Early Childhood Education, a leading Non Governmental Organization (NGO) on education in Nigeria, development, Research and Projects Centre (dRPC) has donated educational materials to 23 proprietress of community based Early Childhood Care and Development, ECCD in Kano and Jigawa states to boost their capacity.
The Centre’s Senior Program Associate, Umar Ahmad while distributing the replenishment packs to the proprietress in Kano, said the centre lend hand of support to the proprietress in the face of current inflation rates in the country.
Ahmad said the support was based on a need assessment survey carried out by the centre to ensure the ECCD centre keep running.
According to him, “dRPC supported 40 young female secondary school leavers to establish community-based Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centers in 2019. They been running and managing the schools since 2019. So annually, when schools resumed we usually meet to discuss about the schools, the enrollment and also provide replenishment of items to them.
“So we had a mini survey what are their key challenges especially with the recent inflation in the country. So they raised a lot of challenges. A total of 65% of the community based ECCD proprietress participated in the survey to deduce the following findings and trends within the last year.
“There is a 38.6% increase in the enrollment of pupils in the community based ECCD Schools signifying the community need for the schools.
“There has been a 58.8% increase in school fees with only 30% of parents pay schools fees regularly compared to 70% from the previous survey and leading to low resources available for the increasing population and running the school.
“There is currently a 37.3% increase in employment of caregivers from the local community as oppose insufficient income from school fees typically ranging from N10 daily to N3000 per term
“Surprisingly, there is an increased will and commitment by the proprietress to keep pupils in the community based ECCD schools despite the challenges.
“So the support is based on their need assessment to keep running and managing the schools,” Ahmad said.
On his part, the representative of the Permanent Secretary from Jigawa State Universal Basic Education Board, Garba Ibrahim commended dRPC for the support and described it as a welcome development.
Meanwhile, the ECCD centers, operational in Kano and Jigawa states, currently enrolls 2048 children (890 males and 1138 females).
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