The National Private Educational Institutions in Uganda (NPEIA) leadership is calling on parents to consider taking their children to pre-primary schools within their locality to abide by the demands of the Pre-Primary Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) and the 2025 Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy, which places strict limits on reporting and study time.
Mr Jossy Busiku Wanemba, the NPEIA chairperson in Kampala District, noted that the ECCE policy and the pre-primary curriculum emphasise that early childhood care centres should start lessons at exactly 8am and end at midday; a policy directive that he said is frequently flouted by parents, whose children study outside their localities.
‘We want to continuously encourage our parents to find schools with the same services nearby, to avoid waking up children as early as 5am, so that they are not affected by cognitive psycho-motor and issues to do with affective part of learning,’ Mr Busiku told an ECCE policy dissemination workshop at Kitante Primary School yesterday.
“If you live in Mukono and work in Kampala, there is no need to come along with the children from Mukono to Kampala. Take them to nearby schools in Mukono,” he emphasised.
However, Ms Prossy Naigembe, a parent, says some places still lack ECCE centres, a concern that the government is yet to address.
Under the new pre-primary and lower primary curriculum guidelines in Uganda, the official reporting time for nursery school children is 8am.
Mr Busiku explained that the new CBC and ECCE policy limits school hours to safeguard children’s physical, cognitive, and emotional development.
According to the proposed reforms, ECCE centres will have daily contact time that shall not exceed three hours, save for learners with special learning needs, as well as 30 minutes for breaks, which are intended to keep up with the average attention span of most children.
Teaching methods are planned to be interactive, engaging and playful; while encouraging exploration, inquiry and hands-on learning to help children develop critical thinking and problem- solving skills. Boarding school arrangements for children aged 0 to 6 years are also banned.
All learning activities must be completed within these short school hours so that children can rest and play when they get home.
Reflecting on this, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Sports, Dr Kedrace Turyagyenda, said all stakeholders in the education sector should take the policy reforms seriously and ensure children are given the correct portions of quality work at specific ages.
”Now that we have guidelines, you are not going to ‘kill’ our children with a lot of work again,’ Dr Turyagyenda said. ‘When you subject a four-year-old to materials beyond their age for longer hours, you affect their brain.’
She also encouraged ECCE teachers to continue learning to acquire certificates of Continuous Professional Development to enable them to register and acquire the appropriate licenses to work in ECCE centres.
Dr Safina Mutumba, the assistant commissioner for Pre-Primary Education in the Ministry of Education and Sports, said the policy is being disseminated and tested in the Kampala Metropolitan Area to create awareness among key stakeholders, including teachers, school proprietors, political leaders and partners ahead of policy implementation.
‘We have moved very fast with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) so that we begin observing implementation of the policy right from the beginning of Third Term of 2026 academic year,’ Dr Mutumba said.
The Education ministry launched the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE/ECCD) policy in April this year, in a bid to provide a national framework to regulate and improve learning and care for children under 6 years.
Dr Mutumba acknowledged that the absence of such a policy had made it difficult for the government to enforce standards. Records indicate that 58 percent of 50,000 ECCE centres in Uganda do not meet the minimum basic standards. They are also all privately owned.
Officials’ records also indicate that only five percent of caregivers or pre-primary teachers have the minimum requirement of a degree.
About 75 percent hold certificates, while the rest have diplomas.
The government has earmarked an undisclosed sum of funding to help the Ministry of Education come up with a complete package of standards.