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Concerned about the largely informal nature of early childhood education (ECD) in the country, particularly in towns and cities, the Government on Wednesday issued a directive that seeks to correct that anomaly.

Many people are turning their homes into crèches or day care centres where they not only offer elementary education to kids but also provide a safer environment for children who are too young to be in conventional schools and whose parents will be too busy to take care of them during the day. Some working parents are therefore opting to enroll their young children into the centres instead of employing maids.

However, a majority of the centres are unregistered as educational institutions which is not good enough to prepare a child for Grade One. This is regrettable as they say a foundation of a house is as strong, or as weak, as the superstructure that stands on it. If you build a house on a shaky foundation it will soon collapse. If you build a house on a strong foundation it endures forever.

The same principle applies to a child’s education. If a child goes into a formal school and gets the right basics, that beginning serves them right as they progress academically and vice versa. Speaking after presenting the Secretary’s Bell award for 2017 to Mpumelelo Primary School in Bulawayo on Wednesday, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education Permanent Secretary, Dr Sylvia Utete-Masango said children graduating from such centres will, with effect from next year, not be able to enroll at conventional schools for Grade One.

“Do not take your children to bogus ECD centres,” she said.

“These ones that have sprouted around cities that are not registered are causing problems. They are so cunning and inviting and purport to be elitist and uphold so-called high standards like being English speaking only institutions. Be warned! Children from such centres will not proceed to Grade One. They will need to go to a conventional institution and start from ECD level.”

We have highlighted the important role that the informal centres are playing in taking care of children where they also get that foundational education.

They also offer some services that the formal sector doesn’t. The fact that we have had them for so long means that there is a gap they are filling.

But on the downside, many of them appear to have become money-making ventures at which parents pay huge amounts of money to enroll their children.

They also want to be elitist, as Dr Utete-Masango observed.

The other point to make, one that overshadows whatever positive contributions they were making to child care giving and preparing them for Grade One, is that some are unregistered with the Government. Because of this, they tend to lack standards in terms of facilities and the quality of education offered. In addition, since they are unregistered, authorities cannot measure or enforce any standards on them.  This isn’t an ideal educational beginning a child must have. A normal parent is unlikely to take their kid to such an environment and convince themselves that they are building a foundation for them.

We note that the Government has not banned the informal schools. We take the ministry’s position as a call for the owners of the centres in point to have them registered and subject them to established standards that any formal school must do. This speaks to issues around teacher-pupil ratio, infrastructure, teaching approaches, teacher qualifications, syllabi and so on. Therefore, we implore the centres to heed Dr Utete-Masango’s call towards formalisation.

We are however mindful of the fact that the country does not have enough teachers trained to handle ECD classes.

In July last year, for example, we reported that Matabeleland South Province had only 116 ECD teachers out of 1 600 posts. The critical shortage of the teachers had forced some school development committees (SDCs) to employ unqualified teachers. It is most revealing that SDCs took it upon themselves to recruit the teachers, albeit unqualified ones, not the Government doing so itself.

“The education policy states that teachers of ECD classes have to be diploma holders but the province does not have them,” Matabeleland South Provincial Education Director, Tumisang Thabela, said then.

“It also requires the qualified teachers to be conversant in the local language of the area where they are posted because ECD pupils have to be taught in their local language. As a province we only have 116 teachers out of 1 600 posts and the SDCs of various schools have employed unqualified personnel to cover the gaps.”

We are unsure if much has changed by way of filling the vacancies in the province given that the Government is unable to employ adequate teachers for higher levels of education.

Thus the informal ECD centres are advised to formalise themselves, parents to take their children to formal schools and the Government to play its part by employing enough teachers so that the kids have the best possible foundational education.