Proliferation of Early Childhood Institutions
The official
provision made in the National Policy on Education (FGN 2004) mandated
the Government to encourage private efforts in the provision of early
childhood education in the country. More so, owing to the high demand
for early childhood education by parents, it does not take a long time
for newly established early childhood institutions to grow and develop.
According to Nwakaego (2007), it is becoming customary to operate an
early childhood institution in every household. currently, early
childhood education institutions are located in various places and
buildings-campuses of some universities and colleges, premises of some
industrial and business organizations, church premises, residential
buildings some part or the whole of which are hired for use as early
childhood schools (Ejieh, 2006). The flip side of this proliferation of
early childhood institutions is that, the issue of standard and
“regulations†have been waved off. The end result is that the young
minds are offered “substandard†and “irregular†education that cannot
breed egalitarianism and self-reliant individuals of the society and
leaders of tomorrow.
Quality and Qualification of Teachers
The quality of the teachers
determines the strength of any educational system and the value of the
learners (Okoro, 2004). In Nigerian early childhood institutions today,
the teacher quality is generally low. It is only a few of the nursery
schools especially those owned by educational institutions, private
companies and wealthy individuals that can afford to engage the services
of university graduate teachers and holders of Nigerian Certificate in
Education (NCE) qualifications, competent and committed teachers and
are also capable of retaining such teachers. Most others employ a few
NCE teachers (if any at all), who are usually underpaid, while others
employ mainly Grade Two teachers and secondary school leavers with
school Certificate or General Certificate (ordinary level)
qualification. In a situation where most of the teachers in our early
childhood institutions are unqualified and/or unprofessional, effective
teaching and learning cannot be achieved.
In-effective Supervision of Early Childhood Institutions
No
educational plan however how excellent it may be, can be effectively
implemented if the school supervision is ineffective. State Ministry of
Education officials are in principle, supposed to visit and inspect the
physical plant, the human and other resources available in a proposed
nursery school and if these are found to be adequate, the ministry would
approve the school for operation. In most cases these visits are made a
long time after the school had become operational and had been paying
the prescribed taxes. The same is true in regard to teachers in nursery
schools. Some of the people employed to teach the children are neither
trained to teach nor do they know how to handle or relate to children.
Language Policy Implementation
In spite of the laudable provision of the language policy nothing much seems to have been achieved. Firstly, the position of Nigerian language as a medium of instruction is hard to come by. The FGN/UNICEF (1993) reported that about 93.2% of teaching and learning in Nigeria preschools was done in English. The 6.8% use immediate language shows clear lackadaisical attitude towards the implementation of the issue of medium of instruction in mother-tongue or language of immediate community. This problem is likely to be connected with parents and pupils interest in English which has been in use since 1842, as well as its official position in Nigeria (Tor-Anyiin, 2008). The low literacy rate even in English indicates poor implementation of the language policy; he further maintained that lack of implementation of language policy has affected the quality of Nigeria Educational development.
Teacher-Pupil Ratio
The policy position of teacher pupil ratio of 1:25 is also not implemented due to lack of supervision or monitoring. Indeed, since businessmen/women dominate this education sector, profit maximization is their main concern. As such, employing more teachers to maintain this ratio is not beneficial to them, hence, early childhood institutions have a ratio that depends on available children. This goes further to explain the accommodation problem of this educational level. Though higher institutions are now offering early childhood education courses, however, Government non- encouragement in terms of scholarship and teachers’ poor financial remuneration is blocking many of the opportunities to go for such courses and help man the institutions. Indeed, since, the proprietors are money conscious their payment is not encouraging to warrant many people take to the study of early childhood education (Tor-Anyiin, 2008).
2.2.2 The Contribution of the Community on Early Childhood Education
The relationship between community and school is very fundamental. This is because the ultimate aim is to make sure that the intended objectives of any school points ultimately to the child success and successful performance. Mahoney and Read (2008) emphasizes that the child is a member of a biological family and a home is the first contact before he comes to school. When children go to school they also combine with the home and therefore these two institutions should be complementary. Bell (2006) says that through the years the many factors that contribute to excellence in learning have proved that no school can fully compensate for failure at home. The home context of the child is one of the important factors that determine his/her achievement in school. Bowlby (2006) presented a considerable amount of evidence that illustrated the negative effects of early experience. He showed that, children brought up in institutions that are not given the opportunity to develop stable emotional bonds failed to thrive and develop in the same way as children brought up in a family home and good school relations. Here it should be noted that achievement is not only in passing examinations but rather achievement in becoming fully developed, emotionally, socially, academically. The world is not in short of people who have achieved highly in school but are also not socially misfits.
The Michigan Department of Education (Alatorre, 2009) in a research found out that, where there is community involvement, there is:-
(a) Higher grades and graduation rates: Students are not usually left to teachers alone but their parents and relatives in the community most often help them with remedial work and make sure that assignment is done. This kind of activity boosts the students to work hard at home and school environments.
(b) Better school attendance: School attendance is one of the fundamental prerequisites of better learning for any student. When the community becomes watchful over their students it becomes difficult for the student to miss schooling thus reducing truancy.
(c) Increased motivation: Community increases motivation of the learners because being close to them in school and at home shows that they care for them and they feel appreciated in their quest for education.
(d) Fencer instances of violent behavior: Community helps to prevent bad behavior like truancy, drug taking and any other delinquencies that might harm the learning of the students in school. Fiore (2011) agrees that the home of the child serves as the child‘s induction phase to the school. Mutual understanding and partnership between school and community would help teachers, parents and other community members to identify areas in which they can work together for the benefit of the child.
