Early childhood care and education (ECCE) targets children aged 6 months to 6/7 years old. In Kyrgyzstan the enrolment in ECCE is not compulsory. The ECCE services are provided through day nurseries; day nursery-kindergartens; kindergartens and school/kindergartens; child development centres; pro-gymnasium (ECCE programmes provided by innovative schools); parent schools (short days and full days for children not attending kindergartens); community kindergarten; kindergarten with short term stay (3 to 5 hours per day). Infant schools (ECCE centres) admit children from the age of 18 months to 3 years, while kindergartens cater to children from the ages of 3 to 6/7 (IBE 2011). The Kyrgyz government has recognized the need to expand ECCE programmes and improve access to these initiatives. The MoES' ECCE policy currently focuses on creating alternative models of ECCE institutions.

ECD in Kyrgyzstan is not free and access to ECD programmes and institutions is extremely limited with a net enrolment rate (NER) of 10% in 2007 (UNICEF n.d.(a)). This is largely a consequence of the closure of hundreds of kindergartens owned by state-run firms after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The majority of the remaining establishments were sold off for private commercial use, thereby dramatically raising the cost of ECD. In fact, the number of preschool institutions fell from 1,604 in 1990 to 448 in 2005. For now, most governmental attempts to make ECD more accessible and affordable remain isolated and narrowly focused pilots projects which are small in scale and often cover only a few rayons. Significant differences in attendance persist between urban and rural areas. One-third of children who attended ECD institutions were from urban centres, with the highest attendance of 41.9% in Bishkek. Further analysis has shown that children of Russian ethnicity make up the majority of ECD enrolment (42.6%) while children of Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic groups represent 17.3% and 14.9% of ECCE enrolments (IBE 2011).

The quality of education at the pre-primary level is a serious concern. Overall, the sector is underfunded. Available funds normally cover basic operational funding to maintain the current levels of access but which perpetuates the existing problems. Low wages, reduced numbers of pre-school institutions, and increase of class sizes have contributed to the fall in the prestige of teaching profession and this contributed to the lack of qualified teachers in ECD. At the end of 2005, nearly 3,600 educational specialists worked in pre-school institutions, of which only 53% had higher education; nearly 35% had secondary professional education and over 5% had secondary education. In addition to inadequate funding and lack of qualified teachers, lack of adequate educational material in Kyrgyz language is another obstacle to improving quality of ECD services.

The MoES’s Preschool Department is responsible for the management of the ECD institutions. However, since the early 1990s, the Ministry has struggled to establish and manage a sufficient number of preschools to accommodate the number of pre-school children. Community-based kindergartens embody a popular alternative to the state-run ECD bodies, especially in rural areas. Community-based kindergartens, established upon the initiative of a community in cooperation with aiyl okmotu, provide preschool education services and care. In addition to the successful community-based kindergartens, private childcare providers, NGOs as well as international organizations have stepped in to fill in the void left by state-run ECD institutions. 

The MoES adopted a Preschool Education Concept in 2005 that encouraged the creation of alternative forms of ECD to the existing state-run kindergartens. This Concept consequently led to the adoption of the National Standard for Pre-School Education and Childcare document in 2007,  whose particular objective was to design programmes to allow caregivers to prepare children of pre-school age who do not attend government-run kindergartens, for primary education. In 2010 a new law on Preschool Education came into force. It sets guidelines on how preschool institutions should be run and also establishes a system of oversight and accountability. In 2012-2014 the Government is planning to scale up alternative preschool models, especially Community-Based Kindergartens, focusing on development of educational and developmental standards for pre-school children. The strategy seeks to improve children's readiness to start primary school on time, particularly among marginalized children (IBE 2011).