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).

Aga Khan Education Service, Uganda

The Aga Khan Education Service (AKES), Uganda 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.

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 a million children from marginalised East African communities to successfully transition into primary school at the right age and succeed in later schooling. We have trained and supported over 8,000 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.