There are many nursery schools mushrooming in Rwanda that should be a pride to all people living in the country. Nevertheless, what remains to be understood, is their essence. What does a nursery school entail and what is it supposed to offer? First, a nursery school or kindergarten is a unique environment designated for infants between the ages of two and five. It serves children of both working and non-working parents, rarely receives public funds, and its primary objectives are to promote the social and educational adjustment of children, rather than to provide a daytime childcare service. Unfortunately, parents use the pre-schools to serve the exact opposite objectives. They use it either to keep children away from parents as they go for their businesses or to improve children’s academic skills. Mukamusoni Janet, a mother of three, says, “I am so lucky that nowadays we have nursery schools that can keep our children from sunrise to sunset. I used to suffer a lot with house maids who were on and off, but now I keep my children with the teachers until I come back in the evening.” In other words, nursery schools are good as long as they keep the kids away from the parents for a day. These parents should check the environment in which their children stay. For sure, no one should expect a baby to remain in a school environment for twelve hours. Whether the baby is given a bed or not, the environment is simply not conducive. The parent is absent in the process of the child’s development and this situation could cause problems in the future. Teachers and nursery schoolsLike any business enterprise, nursery schools are supposed to be money making. In other words, a parent has to pay money. But what is intriguing is that some nursery school teachers and owners do not know what to offer. They fail to distinguish the pre-primary level with the primary one and hence end up teaching the babies more than what they need at that age. “My class is very clever, look at the marks of the first child in my school,” said a middle-aged nursery teacher in Kayonza. To her what matters is the academic performance and not the child’s capacity for socialisation. This is wrong and we need to conceptualise the idea of nursery schools if we are to benefit from their large numbers. mugitoni@yahoo.com
