Bodinga, about 33 kilometres from Sokoto town, in North-West Nigeria, is an unruffled and peaceful local government area striving progressively through all challenges and uncertainties surrounding education in northern region of the country,
Parents in Bodinga local government area of Sokoto State have remained resolute and undaunted to laying solid foundation for their children’s education.
Locals in this area rekindled their crave for western education and made a pact with Ali Fodio primary school Bodinga, to be advocates of Early Childhood Care, Development and Education (ECCDE).
During my visit to the Early Childhood Class of Ali Fodio, after a two day media dialogue organised by UNICEF for journalists in Sokoto State, I met pupils who looked unsure but expectant, they were prepared to learn for the day through play, rhymes, songs and their natural environment.
“Tana koyamin abinci” (meaning “she teaches me food”) was the only response I got in local dialect from three year old Nana Khadija, one of the pupils of Ali Fodio ECE.
In my quest to make wits of her response, the ECCDE class of Ali-Fodio began what they called, the morning circle. The pupils began to sing with the food they eat at home, “Shinkafa, wake, da kifi da kwai sune mamana ta bani” (meaning rice, beans and fish and egg are what my mother give me) they also made rhymes with them and tie each food to it’s group in nutrition though in Hausa language. Then I realised that little khadijah was talking about the classes of food, she’s been taught.
Nana Khadijah and her classmates, all between ages 3-6years, about forty of them in the classroom on the day Voice of Nigeria visited, the only Caregiver in the ECCDE class, Mrs Binta Musa pegged their total enrolment in this class at 150 pupils. The where-about of other pupils became a question.
A class that started with 40 pupils in 2020 has now grown to such huge number, Mrs Binta Musa says she’s the only caregiver in the class. Though an experienced teacher of 10years who has been caring for the pupils in ECCDE for 5 years.
Despite that pupils learn mostly through play in this class hence attending and coping with 150 pupils is no doubt an enormous task for one person.
According to Mrs Musa, “we started with 40 pupils now we have 150 pupils in the early childhood care development education class our pupils are always consistent in class but once it is break-time more than half of them go home to eat food because they live around and sometimes they don’t return to class and other on other days they come back after break because I have observed that the pupils prefer each others company and they love to play together.”
Early Childhood Matters
The Caregiver said the ECE which now introduces play based methods has enhanced the assimilation of the pupils and it is improving their critical skills.
This confirms an American Psychologist’s position on education and social reforms, John Dewey, he believes that every child can be active, inquisitive and ready to explore if given the opportunity. He also believed that children needs to interact with other people and work both alone as well as cooperatively with their peers and adults.
“I made these items that children are using to learn because it will help them connect in social collaboration, the toys and other forms of play encourages the pupils to work in groups and develop knowledge through communicating among themselves.”
Just like Reggio Emilia’s Caregiver approach to early years education, the approach that focuses on pupils centered and self guided curriculum that engages self experiential learning in relationship driven environment. Mrs Musa uses local materials to create items such as chairs, cups, pots and others that could serve as instructional materials during teaching and learning.
“I have been teaching the pre-nursery classes for some years now using other methods but it is much easier for the pupils to learn through the play method which allows them play together through certain task, they do their work together as I pair them in groups, sometimes they play with available toys and items around them , sometimes the boys are paired to play football , I discovered that the play-method make them understand faster what I teach them.” Binta Musa added.
The caregiver mentioned that if the pupils had more instructional materials to learn with, it would further enhance teaching and learning.
Surge In ECCE Enrolment
Chairman of School Based Management Committee of Ali Fodio primary school, Bawa Sani Turakin Bodinga, an alumna of the school , told Voice of Nigeria that the committee devised several ways to reach out to residents of Bodinga telling them about the importance of getting their children educated qualitatively.
He disclosed that the early childhood education in the area is free and has now been made compulsory for all the children.
Bawa Sani further disclosed that the SBMC engaged the services of women organisations in the community and house-to-house campaign to advocate for early childhood education in bodinga, this he said resulted to the surge in numbers of pupils in the ECE class.
According to the SBMC Chairman, “Technically we initiated the platform through which we contacted the members of the public in this local government on the need to educate their children qualitatively so we engaged women’s organisation and house to house strategies, our women talked to fellow women in families on the impact of education and that is the reason why we see the huge numbers of pupils in the ECE class.
“The ECCDE is free and it has been made compulsory for pupils in all of our communities in Bodinga,” he added.
The SBMC Chairman also revealed that the disparity in female to male pupils enrolment has now been addressed through this same method adding that the school now record increase in numbers of the girl-child than the boys.
“Before the gap between the boys and girls in the classes have been so wide that we cannot think of putting it together but now we have more girls in school than boys.”
Bawa called for increase of female teachers from authorities saying they make greater impact on the pupils.
“We need more women teachers from the government because we have seen that they make more impact on the learning of the pupils.”
Pupils to Care-giver Ratio
Head Of Department Early Child Care Development Education , Shehu Shagari College of Education, Fatimah Abdullahi, said the idea pupil caregiver ratio is 35pupils to 1Caregiver.
“The present situation in Ali Fodio primary school is not the idea, the ideal is 1 Caregiver to 35 pupils but due to the awareness on the importance of early childhood education, Ali fodio recorded surge in the enrolment of pupils at the ECE class.”
Abdullahi described the ECCDE as a building block where play creates learning opportunities across all areas of development.
“Development and learning may be challenging for the child so for them to acquire all the skills across all domains children are to be encouraged through play which develops their motor, cognitive ,social and emotional skills.
“So as caregivers, during these period when the children play and construct and do things together, the care givers are expected only to watch and not interact or interfere in what they do but after playing they then ask the children about what they have constructed creatively now the caregiver will make corrections this is where she will intervene, so the play based method has proven very effective that was why it was introduced to Nigerian children.” Abdullahi added
ECCDE Study In Sokoto
The Head of the ECCDE Department Shehu Shagari College of Education further made known that, earlier studies carried out in 2012 by the institution and other experts, on import of early childhood education on students in higher classes revealed that students who passed through the ECCDE performed better than those who only start schooling at primary one.
Parents & ECCDE Performance Measurement
Country Representative of Early Childhood Development Initiative Nigeria, Dr Amy Panyi Shalangwa said ECCDE said that the early childhood education is very significant as it helps the child to be prepared both mentally, socially, psychologically, emotionally.
Dr Amy Panyi cautioned parents on the measurement of pupils in ECCDE class saying that assessment of performance of these pupils at the ECE should not be based on their immediate ability to write but rather parents should support the child through the early stage of education to develop abilities for logical and critical thinking.
She called for more training for caregivers saying this would enable them adequately implement the content of Nigeria’s curriculum on early childhood education.
“We emphasised the place of thorough training for the caregivers they must be well trained and equipped enough to handle the curriculum, when children are allowed to play in class through the play-based method, they have the ability to creatively innovate and relate socially , this will have positive impacts on the latter part of the child’s life,” Dr Amy Panyi added.
A Father of one of the pupils in Ali Fodio ECCDE Class Bashir Bala Bodinga said his 4year old son, Ashiru Bashir is more responsive and interacts better with his siblings after about two months he joined Ali Fodio ECCDE Class.
“I realise that the way he interact with the mother and all other people in the house has improved , before Ashiru did not know how to read his alphabets and he didn’t even know how to write numbers 1-10 but now ,step by step he now count from 1 to 100.
“By my observation is that they need teaching aids they have it but not enough,” he affirmed that one caregiver is not enough for the ECE class in the school
UNICEF Education Specialist, Yetunde Oluwatosin told journalists on the media tour to Bodinga that Nigeria has made progress in Early Childhood Education program .
She confirmed that the ECCDE sub sector is plagued with shortage of teachers.
“If you look at it from the National Personnel Audit of 2018 by the Universal Basic Education Commission, we have over 7million learners but 154 teachers.”
There are 105 basic primary schools in Bodinga Local Government Area with 27 of them having ECCDE centres.
“Early Childhood Care, Development and Education in Nigeria is an aspect of Universal Basic Education introduced to increase access of children to basic education.”
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