Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programmes target young children in the 3 to 5-year-old age range and are considered important contributors to early childhood development. ECCE in Kiribati experienced a rapid expansion since the early 1990s. The success of this initiative is due to collabourative support from UNICEF, the University of the South Pacific (USP), the METT and other local organizations. A particularly vocal group, the Kiribati Early Childhood Education Association (KECEA), deserves credit for educating and rallying communities around ECE. Although the METT supports these programmes, they are externally funded (UNICEF 2005).
Access to ECCE is growing dramatically in Kiribati. In the span of just 14 years from 1990-04, the percentage of year 1 students who had attended ECCE grew from almost 0% to about 62% (UNICEF 2005). In 1999, there was an estimated 245 centres. However, enrollment rates vary between 100% in 3 islands to less than 10 % in other (UNESCO 2006).
Kiribati’s ECCE is a work in progress. Currently, it faces challenges in quality due to incomplete national policy on the purpose, programme and provision of ECCE, lack of a coherent, comprehensive curriculum, lack of integration of programme with the curriculum and assessment framework, and teachers with low skill levels (UNESCO 2008). The METT and its partners are making an effort to meet these challenges. For instance, the Kiribati Early Childhood Education Association (KECEA) developed and implemented a curriculum, yet it is not widely enforced. The Bahai church runs an ECCE teacher training programme and has conducted teacher training workshops on most outer islands. The METT offered an Early Childhood Education programme in 1996. This was cancelled in 2001 but is scheduled to be reinstated (UNICEF 2005).
The Ministry of Education, Training and Technology (METT) is the official body responsible for Early Childhood Development (ECD). However, non-governmental organizations play an important role in sustaining the ECD initiative. In fact, most ECCE centres are run by island councils, churches and individuals (USP 2008).
According to the Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) 2008-11, Kiribati lacks a set of clear, established policies on Early Childhood Education. Goal number 4 of the ESSP is to strengthen the Ministry’s policy framework and planning systems. This includes improving policy development, monitoring and evaluation, financial planning and use of data as a tool for effective planning (MoE 2008b). KECEA has made some achievements endorse a set of standards relating to fees, safe environments for ECCE centres, teachers’ qualifications, teacher:child ratio and curriculum. During a March 2007 workshop on ECCE in the Pacific, it was noted that the METT was in the process of reviewing and refining a 2000 ECCE policy for Kiribati. At that time, the draft policy included the age range (2-5), fees, teacher qualifications, curriculum, health and safety, teachers’ responsibilities, resources, relationship with the community, medium of instruction, excursions, assessments and record keeping. Additionally, plans for the next few years which were drafted as of 2007, included expanding the number of centres, redesigning the 1 year course for ECE teachers at Kiribati Teachers’ College, regularizing the registration of ECCE centres and translating the curriculum into Kiribati (USP 2008).
