EFFECT OF DEVOLUTION ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT IN WAJIR-COUNTY, KENYA

Yussuf Ali Issa

Student, Master of Arts in Public Policy and Administration,

Kenyatta University.

Felix Kiruthu

Lecturer, Department of Public Policy and Administration,

Kenyatta University

CITATION: Issa, Y., A. & Kiruthu, F. (2022) Effect of Devolution on Early Childhood Education Infrastructure Development in Wajir-County, Kenya. International Journal of Arts and Entrepreneurship. Vol. 11 (4) pp 54 – 69.

ABSTRACT

Poor literacy rates, low retention and transfer rates, and restricted access to young life, primary, intermediate, and higher education have plagued people in Kenya's marginalized areas, such as Wajir County, for many years. With devolution, formerly ignored towns' county governments now have the potential to correct the situation and, as a result, minimize educational inequity. The purpose of this study was to see how devolution impacted the development of early childhood education infrastructure at ECDE centers in Wajir North Sub County, Wajir County, Kenya. The following specific objectives guided this research: to determine the impact of devolution on ECDE water infrastructure, to determine the impact of devolution on ECDE electricity infrastructure, and to determine the impact of classroom infrastructure in ECDE centers in Wajir North Sub County, Wajir County, Kenya. Agency theory was used to guide the research. Methods of quantitative and qualitative analysis were applied. The goal of qualitative data analysis was to describe the information gathered from the open-ended questions on the questionnaire. Numeric metrics were employed in quantitative analysis to establish the scores of the answers made. This entailed creating descriptive statistics after data collection, estimating features of the population from the statistics, and making inferences based on statistical findings using the Social Sciences statistical Package (SPSS). The results presents that the number of schools connected with electricity power have increased and the ECDE centres have adopted use of generators to supply alternative power supply. The study found that the relevant administrators have embarked on establishing new ECDE centres in Wajir North sub-county. The study presented that the ECDE centre do not provide safe drinking water and insufficient piping of water was evident. The study established that there was no equitable distribution of water pumps in Wajir Sub County. It was evident that classes are few to accommodate the increasing number of kids. The findings show that local money and resources have been ineffectively mobilized, and instructors in pre-primary education have not been adequately rewarded for their efforts. The results presents that there are policies and guidelines which guide the management of ECDE centres. Policies and standards have supported the growth of pre-primary education, and policies that have been enacted increase community engagement in the management of early childhood programs. The study recommended that there is need for the government to revisit the models that guide the implementation of devolution. For effective implementation of devolution, the state of infrastructure in the county should be put into consideration. The stakeholders should come up with measures to increase supply of water and electricity in the county. The resource allocation should be enough to cater for ECDE needs for water in the county. Devolved funds through county governments as well as other funds such as the youth, women and constituency development fund can be used to facilitate such initiatives.

Key Words: Devolution, Early Childhood Education Infrastructure Development

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