EFFECTIVENESS OF SERVICE STANDARD GUIDELINES POLICY ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION CURRICULUM IN WEST POKOT COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

The Service Standard Guidelines Policy was established to guide the implementation of Early Childhood Development Education (ECDE) curriculum in Kenya (GoK, 2007). The previously advanced reports over this education sector revealed that the implementation of the ECDE curriculum in West Pokot County has been facing immense challenges which included inappropriate use of teaching methods, reluctance and low attitudes by policy implementers at the county and national government, poor classroom facilities, inadequate teaching and learning resources. The focus of this study was to unravel the challenges that affected the implementation of ECDE curriculum at the Pre-Primary school level in the county. The objectives of the study included; to assess the consequence of ECDE policy on the implementation of early Years’ education curriculum, to examine the effect of teacher’s qualification on the implementation of ECDE curriculum, to evaluate the influence of supervisory activities on the implementation of ECDE curriculum to find out the effect of pedagogical practices used on the implementation of ECDE curriculum and to determine the influence of monitoring and evaluation on the implementation of ECDE curriculum in the county. The study was guided by two theoretical perspectives namely; Consumer-Oriented Evaluation Approach (COEA) by Scriven (1967) and the Human Capital Theory by Heckman (2000). The constructivist philosophical paradigm was adopted for its stance that ‘all knowledge’s is objective and product of construction or creation by independent man. The triangulation research design that provided a procedure for analyzing quantitative and qualitative separately and later integrating, converging and interpreting the two strands of results was adopted. The target population included 1920 ECDE teachers and 8 County Quality Assurance and Standards (CQAS) personnel. The study adopted Yamane (1973) level of precision formula to determine the sample size for teachers and purposive sampling for the 8 CQAS personnel. The study sample size included 331ECDE teachers and 8 CESQAS personnel making a total of 339 respondents. A proportionate stratified random sampling technique was used to determine the sample size of teachers for each Sub County for study. The study utilized three types of data collection instruments namely questionnaire for teachers, interview schedule for CQAS personnel and observation checklist. Reliability was measured by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and validity tested through expert judgments. The qualitative data was analyzed qualitatively and presented using narratives. Quantitative data was analyzed quantitatively with the use of descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) computer program version 22. The overall results of the study revealed that the EDCE policy was irresponsible on the implementation of ECDE curriculum in the county. The multiple regression results revealed that the policy accounts for 82.8% of the implementation of ECDE Curriculum. These findings indicated that an increase in adherence to policy leads to improved implementation which in turn leads to improved achievements towards Kenya’s vision 2030. As such, the ECDE Policy implementers should address the revealed challenges that are facing the implementation of the Pre-Primary school curriculum so that this education sector can be able to deliver successfully quality products in the County.