The Effect Of Government, Community And Private Sector On Early Childhood Education
[A CASE STUDY OF ILORIN SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KWARA STATE]

2.2.3    The Contribution of Private Sector on Early Childhood Education
The private sector in its broadest sense includes communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), faith-based organizations, trade unions, private companies, small-scale informal providers and individual practitioners; all may collaborate with Government in order to raise education quality. Though the public sector remains the dominant player in education, making high quality education accessible for all in a country requires innovative programmes and initiatives in addition to public resources and leadership – or ‘vision’. There are ways in which the public and private sectors can join together to complement each other’s strengths in providing education services, helping countries to meet their education goals and to improve learning outcomes (Patrinos, 2009).
2.3    The Challenges in Implementing Early Childhood Education in Nigeria
These challenges are:
1.    Professionally Qualified Caregivers/Teachers: It is widely acknowledged that early childhood educators with required professional preparation provide more developmentally appropriate, nurturing, and responsive care and education experiences for young children (National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), 2007). This aligns with the submission in an Issue Brief by National Governors Association Centre for Best Practices (2010) that the knowledge and skills of early childhood care providers and teachers are critical factors in their delivery of high-quality developmental and educational experiences to young children. In confirmation of this, Boyd (2013) reported the result of a study conducted in 2002 by National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHHD) and The Early Child Care
Research Network (ECCRN) in which it was found that providers with BA degrees in ECE provided higher quality learning experiences for children in their care.
This underscores the importance of giving children the opportunity to learn under professionally qualified caregivers/teachers. Unfortunately, the situation is contrary in most pre-primary schools in Nigeria. In privately owned pre-primary schools, teachers with no training in ECE are often found in children classrooms while in pre-primary sections of government owned public schools, old female teachers with no qualification in ECE are often seconded to children classrooms. Findings from various studies conducted by researchers in Nigeria have consistently confirmed this same situation (e.g., Olaleye & Omotayo, 2009; Amadi, 2013; Okewole, Iluezi-Ogbedu, & Osinowo, 2013; Osho, Aliyu, Okolie, & Onifade; 2014).
2. Resources: When resources are available for ECE programme at pre-primary school level, it helps the caregiver/teacher to nurture and support the development of young children, and to successfully implement curriculum. According to Chukwbikem (2013), the quantity and quality of resources available for any educational programme would determine schools systems capacity for the implementation of the type of educational programme. What this implies is that resources are critical to successful implementation of any ECE programme. In spite of the fact that resources are critical to successful implementation of ECE programme, they are not found in many Nigerian pre-primary schools, especially in the pre-primary section of public primary schools that belong to the government. Many researchers in Nigeria who have assessed the resources that are available for ECE at pre-primary school level have confirmed this same situation through the findings of their studies (e.g., Viatonu, Usman-Abdulqadri, & Dagunduro, 2011; Amali, Bello, & Okafor, 2012; Okewole, 2013; Osho, et al., 2014).