Aga Khan High School, Kampala, Uganda.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
Aga Khan High School, Kampala, Uganda.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
The Aga Khan Foundation is assisting in the creation of locally owned early childhood centres in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, fostering rich preschool environments to support children in their most formative years.
AKDN / Zul Mukhida
The Aga Khan Foundation is assisting in the creation of locally owned early childhood centres in Kenya, …
AKDN / Zul Mukhida
The Aga Khan Foundation's Madrasa Early Childhood Development programme - Kampala, Uganda.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
The Aga Khan Foundation's Madrasa Early Childhood Development programme - Kampala, Uganda.
AKDN / Lucas Cuervo Moura
Uganda | Early Childhood Development
Children’s experiences in their first few years are instrumental in preparing them for life. AKDN is helping them to gain the skills they will soon need to engage with their primary education.
65,000
The early childhood education programme has benefited over 65,000 children
Overview
The Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) and the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) have been actively involved in early childhood development programmes for decades. AKES operates an international standard nursery school across two campuses in Kampala (Kololo and Makerere), initially established almost 30 years ago. AKF supports the creation of locally-owned early childhood development centres in Uganda through its Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP).
Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP)
Since its inception in 1993, MECP has fostered rich preschool learning environments to support children during their most formative years. The programme has increased the ability of over 65,000 children from marginalised communities to successfully transition into primary school at the right age and succeed in later schooling. We have trained and supported over 6,000 ECD teachers and over 25,000 parents and community members. Currently, MECP works with over 90 communities, comprising over 14,000 boys and girls in Uganda. We focus on enhancing communities’ capacity to support optimal child development from birth.
We have also supported the establishment of 97 centre management committees and trained over 1,350 members; and provided two years of in-service training and mentoring support for over 1,300 ECD caregivers. MECP implements multi-sectoral interventions whose key components include education, health, nutrition, social protection and child protection. These are integrated with the curriculum and used in the capacity development of teachers and other key stakeholders.
MECP teaches parents and caregivers how to incorporate health, literacy, numeracy, music and play into everyday routines that optimise cognitive, physical, social, emotional and language development. MECP helps parents understand and support the teaching and learning approach, particularly while schools are closed. Leaflets, workshops and home visits help them make a toy and demonstrate its benefits.
The programme also creates school management committees, community resource teams and clusters of preschools. These facilitate peer learning amongst teachers and engage communities and families in encouraging early childhood development outside the classroom. MECP supports over 100 community-owned and private preschools across the country.
Madrasa Early Childhood Development Institute
MECP has also established a training institute known as the Madrasa Early Childhood Development Institute (MECDI). The institute is the first nationally recognised ECD training institute and is registered with the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES). Its mission is to provide affordable, culturally relevant and quality ECD training, ranging from short tailor-made courses to two-year qualifications. Over 1,385 qualified early childhood educators have graduated from MECDI.
In 2014 MECP developed a proficiency course in collaboration with the MoES, Kyambogo University and Bugema University, and delivered it to over 200 teachers in West Nile. A bridging course was developed in the same year and offered with Bugema University. This upgraded the qualifications of previously trained ECD caregivers to meet the minimum requirements set forth in the MoES enhanced Training Framework.
AKDN
Aga Khan Education Services
The Aga Khan Education Services (AKES) has been operating a nursery programme in Kampala for almost 30 years. Children as young as 18 months (up to six years of age) have access to an integrated, internationally pegged curriculum that prepares them for the transition to international or national curriculum pathways at the primary level. The two nursery campuses (Kololo and Makerere) educate approximately 400 children and have a strong reputation in the community.
Village Health Teams offer parents of children under three information on health and nutrition, basic screening for common illnesses and referral of ill household members. They use the UNICEF/WHO-approved Care for Child Development model, training district health and education officials to support parents and community ECD centres.
Supporting Transition to Primary School
Children accustomed to a conducive learning environment face large class sizes and a teacher-centred “chalk and talk” atmosphere when entering primary school between the ages of six and eight. In response, MECP ensures that lower primary classrooms are conducive to learning. We provide training on developing a variety of low-cost, age-appropriate, safe, attractive and culturally relevant educational resources.
We also support schools to gain more resources for the lower primary grades, both from the community and the government.
Lockdown Learning
During the COVID-19 lockdown, MECP worked with the National Curriculum Development centre to deliver radio programmes in Arua and Central regions. These targeted children aged three to six years with interactive lessons on riddles, songs and stories. MECP also developed and delivered home learning packages to over 10,000 children in both West Nile (Arua) and Central region (Kampala, Mukono and Wakiso).
Influencing and Supporting Government ECD Policy
We are guided by government policies, sign memoranda of understanding with local government and cultivate relationships through membership of working groups within MoES and the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. MECP encourages the government to improve ECD policy implementation by disseminating policy guidelines and organising workshops for local government and relevant ECD stakeholders, including private-sector preschool management and proprietors.
We have contributed to the development of operational guidelines supporting the implementation of key policies – these include the learning and training frameworks, Early Learning Development Standards, and basic requirements and minimum standards for ECD centres. We played a key role in the review of the 2007 ECCE policy and the integrated ECD policy spearheaded by MoES and the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, both of which were important milestones for ECD in Uganda.