Teachers of preschools warn that early childhood education in the country might be at risk as attendance plummets due to the prevailing economic crisis.
Several preschool educators told The Sunday Morning that most children had dropped out and those who continued to attend do so while facing great financial difficulties, a situation which has made it precarious to continue the operations of preschools itself.
According to the National Policy on Preschool Education published by the National Education Commission, Sri Lanka’s National Policy on Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) defines early childhood as the period from conception to the age of five.
Research reveals that children enrolled in at least one year of preschool education or Early Childhood Education (ECE) are more likely to develop the critical skills they need to succeed in school, less likely to repeat grades or drop out of school, and therefore will be more able to contribute to peaceful and prosperous societies and economies when they reach adulthood.
In Sri Lanka, preschools operate as commercial businesses or are run as not-for-profit organisations while the Government sets standards and regulates the sector. However, it is also not compulsory for children in Sri Lanka to receive one or more years of education at a preschool.
Enrolment drops
Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Dhammika Pathiranage, Headmistress of a preschool in Kaduwela, shared that enrolment in preschools had greatly reduced this year, with parents now only sending children to preschool for one year instead of the usual two or three.
“In most preschools, enrolment has dropped and many, including mine, have been pushed towards closure. Schools that typically receive around 10-15 new enrollments for the year now only get around five new students. Even as new enrolments have dropped significantly, the attendance of currently enrolled students has also dropped,” she detailed.
Confirming that preschool attendance had greatly reduced, Sri Lanka Preschool Teachers’ Association Secretary Varuni Jayasinghe told The Sunday Morning that new admissions for the year were vastly lower compared to previous years owing to the prevailing economic situation.
According to Pathiranage, the parents of her students have been hard hit by the ongoing economic turbulence following the Covid pandemic, with many having lost their sources of income, thus finding it impossible to send their children to preschool.
She noted that students who managed to make it to school did so amidst economic difficulties. “It is not only transport problems they face; this time even buying uniforms has become impossible. Parents just can’t spend on these additional expenses, especially since some have lost their jobs. Some students have older siblings sitting for O/Level, A/Level examinations and parents have to spend more on these children as they have great hopes about these examinations due to their importance, which causes preschool education of the other children to take a backseat,” she explained.
“However, it is not like the pace of brain development of preschool-age children will wait until economic problems are resolved, but parents do not consider this, placing more importance on the older children and their career prospects while keeping the younger children at home and teaching them there,” she cautioned.
Preschools struggling
In this backdrop, preschools were also finding it difficult to continue operations, she noted. “I’m actually considering shutting down the school since it is becoming pointless considering the economic situation and the expenses thereof. It is impossible to continue; for instance with transport costs, etc., teachers too are facing economic issues.”
As such, parents are also struggling to pay school fees, with Pathiranage noting that some school fees had not been paid since last year. “Parents sometimes pay school fees sporadically. Regardless, we continue to bear this for the sake of the children. I have told parents to send the children to school even without fees and to pay when they can.”
For instance, as Preschool Teachers’ Association Secretary Jayasinghe noted, private preschools could typically charge about over Rs. 2,000-2,500 on average as monthly fees. “There are more private preschools than Government preschools so that is where most children are sent to,” she said, a circumstance which renders the inability to afford school more acute.
She also noted that many now enrolled their children only for one year of preschool: “While it is accepted that children will benefit in terms of early childhood development if they are sent to preschool from two-and-a-half years old, parents are sending children to preschool for only one year prior to them attending formal schools.”
This lack of preschool education gravely affected the early childhood education activities and related development of children, Pathiranage stressed. “Preschool teachers do a great deal of work in shaping the children. If children manifest any skills in Grade 1, it is due to preschool teachers having given a certain push to those children.” However, since parents are not well versed in teaching methods, a well-rounded education is not conferred upon the children,” she noted.
Primary challenge
The National Education Commission has identified the primary challenge of Sri Lanka’s preschool sector as the fact that many children under five do not go to a preschool. In 2017, just 55.6% of three to five-year-old children attended preschool. Further, only 63.4% of four-year olds (one year before official school entry) attended preschool.
The national policy document stipulates that reasons for low attendance rates in some districts may include the unavailability of preschools near the home, high enrolment and tuition fees, and parents not seeing the benefit of a preschool education for their children and thus not demanding such services.
However, according to UN research, many young children who remain at home do not get the play and early learning support they need for healthy development, a situation that is likely being exacerbated by the prevailing economic crisis.
According to Jayasinghe, the co-curricular activities conducted for children at preschools do not take place properly at home, since parents can sometimes be uninformed about early childhood development activities, creating significant inadequacies in the children’s education. For instance, a child who has attended preschool before going to Grade 1 will have developed certain skills, from how to hold pencils to speaking ability to teamwork.
“A child growing up alone at home will hear fewer words than a child who attends preschool. The latter will acquire an improved vocabulary and be able to speak more easily. However, now there are many children with speech impairments, a primary cause of which is them growing up isolated at home.”
Nutrition struggles
In addition to education, preschools and parents were also struggling to uphold nutrition standards for students, Pathiranage shared, with parents no longer having the economic capacity to provide nutritious meals.
“We used to instruct students to bring food according to the nutrition guidelines, but this is no longer possible given the prices of food. I can’t ask children to bring certain food items such as chickpeas, etc., since parents are no longer able to shoulder the costs,” she shared, explaining that she was now sharing her own meals with the children. “I used to eat at home, but now I take my rice packet in the morning with an extra egg or so and give it to the children.”
Meanwhile, Ceylon Teacher Service Union General Secretary Mahinda Jayasinghe told The Sunday Morning that while school attendance in general had been impacted by the economic crisis, preschools were in an even more difficult situation.
“Sri Lanka’s preschools need to be maintained by Local Government (LG) authorities. However, most LG authorities only manage about one or two preschools. The remaining preschools are maintained privately and parents have to pay fees for these schools. As such, it has become difficult to continue at these preschools.”
Noting that the Education Ministry could not shirk responsibility in this, Jayasinghe stressed that the Ministry and the LG authorities should jointly launch a programme to address the matter.
However, attempts to contact Children’s Secretariat Director Nayana De Silva on the measures being taken for the welfare of preschool children proved futile.