Jordan Government Kindergarten:
Inaccessible Right For Most Kids

Mohammad’s mother made several attempts with the school administration to secure a seat for her son so that he could join a government kindergarten in his area of ​​residence in Qasabet Al-Balqa to no avail as the classes were full.

Mohammad’s mother gave up on her dream to have her child admitted at a kindergarten without having the family pay high fees for it, after she noticed the overcrowded classes. She says, “I enrolled him, and when he went to school, there were fifty students in the same class.”

She explained that the school divided the students over two shifts, and reduced the working hours for each period to only two hours per day.

The situation at the school did not satisfy Mohammad’s mother, “I felt that my son was not benefiting much. I could see the difference between the education Mohammad got in a public preschool, and that of my other son who attended a private school a year earlier..” Later, she transferred her son to a private kindergarten.

Yusuf and Mohammed two kids deprived of government preschool education.

Abeer Al Shboul, a kindergarten supervisor at the ministry of education said the ministry launched a program to raise the learning readiness of disadvantaged children who missed out on kindergarten due to either limited number of seats in public schools or parents being unable to afford their education in private schools.

The implementation of the program began in the academic year 2011/2012, and it targets children who missed out on kindergartens, to prepare them for first grade, and to provide activities that enhance the role of parents in the development and education of their children, especially in disadvantaged communities.

The program is a two-month training but it may be implemented over a shorter period of time, while education in kindergarten lasts for two semesters, Al Shboul says.

Vague criteria

Analysis of the data of the Ministry of Education and the Department of Statistics shows that the districts of Ein Al-Basha and Qasabet Al-Salt are the areas most impacted by the disparity in the distribution of kindergarten classes to the number of preschool aged children.

Ein Al-Basha is classified as one of the poverty pockets in Jordan where the poverty rate exceeds 25%.

The strategic plan of the Jordanian Ministry of Education for the years 2018-2021 recognizes two key challenges to providing early childhood development services and education for all children in Jordan. These are the limited spaces available to build kindergarten classes in densely populated areas and the limited financial resources available.

Despite this, the Ministry’s criteria for establishing kindergarten classes in Al-Balqa government schools are not clear, as they do not take the population density, and the size of the target group of kindergarten-aged children into account.

Article (9), Item (B) of Regulation No. (2) of 2015 on Government Kindergartens highlights three factors that guide the opening of preschool sections, those are the population density, the volume of first-grade students, and the “needs of the area.”

Lawyer and human rights activist Saddam Abu-Azzam believes that the three criteria mentioned in the legal text must be taken into account when opening kindergarten classes.

He explained that the “needs of the area” category is subject to several criteria, including the aspect of development, such as the number of public schools, the availability or the lack of private nurseries in the area and the economic situation.

Abu Azzam, CEO of “Lawyers Without Borders” explains that it is not permissible to open ten kindergarten classes in an area with population density of 100,000 people as opposed to five sections in an area with a population density of 150,000 people.

Future Implications

Doctor Aseel Abu Al-Shawareb, a specialist in child growth and development, points to the importance of preschool in early years that are crucial for the child’s language, personal and social abilities development.

She explains that at this tender age, children undergo their emotional development and become able to deal with others. They also make academic progress in preparation for their school years.

Abu Al-Shawareb, the head of the Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Petra stresses that the social skills that children acquire at an early stage are of such priority as it is the stage where they acquire their social skills like sharing, exchange with others and self-control, such as following classroom rules. This is important for the child’s personal discipline.

A study conducted by the National Centre for Human Resources Development in Jordan highlighted the impact the preschool education years have on children’s learning abilities in later stages.

The study that has reviewed the conditions of 6000 first-grade children from different regions in the country in 2018, revealed that kindergartens access is one of the main factors that explain the disparity in the levels of readiness to learn among children, in addition to impacting their physical health, communication skills and general knowledge.

According to a 2016 study prepared by the World Bank, at least 40% of Jordanian children enrol in first grade schools without any prior formal preparation, because they have been deprived of going through the kindergarten stage. The same study indicates that “students with a lower socioeconomic background do not have the same level of readiness to attend school as their peers from a higher socioeconomic background do.”