Challenges of Early Childhood Education Administration in Public Schools in Borno State

This study examines the administrative challenges facing early childhood education programmes in public schools in Borno State, North East Nigeria. Early childhood education provision in Borno State has been severely disrupted by over a decade of conflict, with many pre-primary facilities destroyed or rendered inaccessible. Rebuilding ECE administration in a post-conflict context presents unique challenges including personnel shortages, infrastructure gaps, and community trust deficits. A mixed-method design was employed, combining surveys of 40 ECE programme administrators and 80 pre-primary teachers in Maiduguri, Jere, and Konduga local government areas with key informant interviews involving five state Ministry of Education officials. Administrative challenges assessed include staffing adequacy, budget allocation, curriculum material availability, community mobilisation, and monitoring effectiveness. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were applied. Results reveal that staffing shortages, inadequate budgetary allocation, and community reluctance to send young children to school due to lingering security fears are the most severe administrative challenges. Training opportunities for pre-primary teachers are extremely limited. The study concludes that ECE administration in Borno State faces compound challenges that require emergency-level policy attention. It recommends that the Borno State Government establish a dedicated ECE reconstruction budget line, partner with UNICEF and Save the Children to accelerate teacher training, and deploy community liaison officers to rebuild parental confidence in enrolling young children.

Keywords: early childhood education, administration, Borno State, post-conflict education, North East Nigeria.