Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in Ethiopia: developments, research, and implications

Abstract

Early childhood care and education has been for many years in Ethiopia. However, these experiences were not systematized, reflected up on and, hence, efforts were not made to extract lessons and delineate future directions. This paper has made a modest attempt to bring to light developments registered, gaps noted and future areas of focus both in intervention and research. It examined the past and present of ECCE developments focusing on policies, programmes and curricula as well as implementation (modalities, government and parent involvement, coordination, monitoring) practices. Almost all available and accessible government documents, secondary data, and research reports in the field up until 2016 were consulted. Findings seem to suggest that although early years’ education had longer presence and was, in due course, able to make significant strides in terms of design, implementation, as well as outcomes, it had, however, been noted to making little progress in terms of, for example, access, equity, quality, and relevance. ECCE in Ethiopia has still been noted to attracting tremendous research but critical, relevant, novel, and comprehensive investigations are yet to come. The paper outlined future directions of programmematic design, intervention and research to enhancing a more professional ECCE delivery in Ethiopia.

Keywords: ECCE, Quality ECCE, ECCE Policy, ECCE Curriculum, O-Class, Child-to-Child, Traditional Education, Priest School, Quranic School