Enablers and Barriers for Scaling an Early Childhood Care and Education Model: The Inclusive Home-Based Early Learning Project in Marginalised Communities in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Kenya

Abstract

Early childhood development (ECD) services are increasingly recognised as essential in improving children's developmental needs and mitigating the effects of intergenerational poverty in Africa. Research and practice have shown that ECD services improve children's health and nutritional status, performance, and retention in school. Though the benefits of preschool exposure are well understood, only 30% of the preschool age children in Sub-Saharan Africa are enrolled in preschool. The enablers for scaling the initiative include presence of government support, cultural rootedness of the initiative, community leadership and support and the presence of Hub models. The barriers included lack of funding support from government, negative attitudes on children with disabilities and lack of understanding of the significance of early child education. These barriers affect the opportunities for scaling this initiative for inclusive early learning among children in marginalised communities. Recommendation from this includeestablishing more and stronger collaborations with different stakeholders including government officials, civil society groups and professional associations, providing more capacity building for parents to ensure community ownership of the IHELP centres by ensuring that parents get more skills and involvement in the learning of their children and making children with disabilities and their families central in the centres to deal with negative community perceptions on children with disabilities.