Open AccessSocial Inequality in Early Childhood Care and Education Provision in Nigeria: A Review of Literature
Author(s) -
Hannah Olubunmi Ajayi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
world journal of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1925-0754
pISSN - 1925-0746
DOI - 10.5430/wje.v9n3p1
Subject(s) - inequality , economic growth , equity (law) , ethnic group , government (linguistics) , millennium development goals , political science , early childhood , early childhood education , socioeconomic status , primary education , educational equity , social inequality , psychology , poverty , sociology , pedagogy , economics , population , demography , developmental psychology , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , law
Early childhood care and education (ECCE) programme has been identified as a strong tool to break the cycle ofpoverty and effective means to establish the basis for further learning, prevent school drop-out, increase equity ofoutcomes and overall skill levels; hence all nations of the world call for effective investment in ECCE. Nigeriaembraced the idea of ECCE and made it a national agenda by incorporating it into the national policy. The essence isto establish access and equality for children all over the country, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, socio-economictransfer. Looking at the trend or the status of the ECCE for some years, it is as if there are lapses in the provision ofearly childhood education in the country. The study therefore examined existing research in early childhoodeducation in Nigeria between 2013 and 2017 (which are pre and post Millennium Development Goals documents) tohighlight the indicators of enrolment in ECCE, sex, and personnel to determine whether there is equality orinequality in the provision and identify the areas of inequality if there be any. The findings showed that inequalitystill exists in the provision of the ECCE programme in Nigeria. The enrolment in the programme is still low ascompared to other educational levels. Employment of personnel into the programme is also very low to the numberat the primary level. There was no visible data on the educational programme as from 2017. It is recommended thatthe government should show more commitment to the educational level.