Provision of Teaching/Learning Resources in the Early Childhood Education Centres in Kakamega County, Kenya.

Abstract

The early childhood education sector in Kenya does not receive direct funding from the government like the primary and secondary sectors. This then calls for stakeholders to provide finances for procurement of teaching/learning resources and other resources. The purpose of this study was to establish the provision of teaching/learning resources in ECE in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey design to investigate this in Kakamega County, Kenya. Purposive sampling was used to select 3 sub-counties (30 % of the population). Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to select 30 % of the public and private ECEs to participate. Head teachers and one teacher from the selected each ECE participated in the study. However where more than one teacher was found in an ECE centre, simple random sampling through balloting was used to select the one to participate. The DEOs and DICECE Officers of the selected sub-counties were selected purposively to participate in the study. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from the ECE head teachers and teachers, interview schedules from the DEOs and DICECE officers and observation schedules used to collect data on availability of teaching learning resources in the ECE centres. The instruments were validated through expert judgement and pilot-testing. Reliability was estimated using Cronbach‟s coefficient Alpha which was 0.80 and deemed adequate for the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse data. The findings of the study revealedthatstakeholders had made good efforts to buy instructional materials in both the public and private ECE centres. The study recommends that the government should streamline ECE within the policy of free primary education and expand the school equipment production unit (SEPU) to institute ECE equipment and materials