The Senate has been called upon to make laws that will formulate uniform policies for the Early Childhood Education programme.
Homa bay County Assembly Speaker Samuel Ochillo said policies guiding the ECD learning should be standardised with the primary education curriculum, saying the move would improve the quality of education offered to pre-school children.
Speaking during the third Annual ECD Summit in Kisumu, Mr Ochilo said ECD forms the corner stone foundation of the young children hence more attention is required in shaping their future.
He said there is no clear cut boundary in ECD and primary levels of education hence the two should be made to work concurrently under the same guidelines.
Ochilo said there should be a clear and standardised policy that guides ECD across the country and not every county doing their own things differently.
“We need to have uniform policies that cut across both ECD and primary education because there is bound to be confusion in the ECD department which is currently being managed differently in the counties,” said the speaker.
He said the Transitional Authority (TA) did not come up with standard policies on ECD that are applicable to all the counties at the same time calling for more allocation of funds to enhanced the services in the sector.
Nominated Senator Daisy Nyongesa said the Senate has passed a Bill which is currently before the national assembly that will streamline the ECD programme.
Ms Nyongesa said the County ECD Bill 2013 aims at instilling a new framework and curriculum in the department in counties and if passed will also stipulate the qualifications and guidelines on recruiting ECD teachers.
The conference which is being hosted by the Competence Building Society of Early Childhood Education for Kenya (CBSECEK) brought together chairpersons of Committee on Education at County Assemblies from all the 47 counties.