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Profile of an ECCE Centre

are also stakeholders, as is the community as a whole. The involvement of
stakeholders in early childhood development is vital.
Notes There are four categories of stakeholders. Users; those governing and managing
it; influencers are those who decide what and how that is to be done; providers
are people who provide resources to the project. They support quality, care and
services. They provide their promotion, advocacy, and funding efforts. Let us
look at each of them in brief.

1. Users
Users are those who will use the products of the project or a programme. They
are the beneficiaries of the output. For example, in an ECCE programme, the
users are children and their parents.

2. Governance stakeholders
Auditors, regulators, health and safety executives are some examples of people
who can be categorised as governance stakeholders. They are people who have
an interest in how things are managed in the programme.

3. Influencers
The rules, regulation, policies of the government and specific needs of the family
and community among others, influence what they need for their children. They
are people who have the ability to change the programme being run by the
preschool.

4. Providers
It is evident that it is the school which provides the structured facilities for
promoting learning and development of children. Providers include the
management, staff and anyone else contributing to the services that benefit children.
For children, a sense of community plays an important role in the development of
their feelings of belonging and security. For many families, early childhood
settings often provide their first contact with a wider community beyond the
home. The community, therefore, is an important stakeholder in ECCE.
All ECCE centres must ensure and plan to enhance the stakeholders’ participation
in the running the centre. They must regularly formulate guidelines to be followed
by all the providers.

A good ECCE centre includes in the teachers' work schedules time to work with
parents. The teachers should be trained on how to work with parents and appreciate
the need to work in collaboration. The parents need to be informed about the
importance of their involvement and contributions. The teachers must keep parents
informed about curriculum and how they can assist at home.

Stakeholders’ participation is therefore vital in the early stages of children's
education because of the impact it has on later education results.

110 EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION