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Namibian children left behindLess than 10% in preschool education Very few children in the Kunene and Omaheke regions are benefiting from the government's early childhood development programmes. 
The latest demographic survey released by the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA) indicates that there are too few children enrolled in any early childhood development (ECD) programmes. The Kunene Region is performing very badly where a very small number of children are exposed to any form of early childhood development.
Namibia's population aged 0 – 5 years currently stands at 388 202, of whom only 8.8%, or 1 888 children, are estimated to be exposed to early childhood development programmes.
Apart from the Kunene Region, Omaheke also has a considerably low number of children that are exposed to forms of early childhood development.
“At regional level, a higher proportion of children attending ECD were in the Erongo Region at 37.7%, the Khomas Region at 34.3% and the Oshana Region at 33.6%,” the NSA said.
At national level, 24.6% of the population attended ECD facilities.
When comparisons were made between the rural and urban areas, it was found unsurprisingly, that access in urban areas was better with 30.4% attending ECD programmes while only 19.9% were found to be attending in rural areas.
When categorised even further, 79.1% of the children involved in ECD programmes were exposed to education-care programmes, 19.2% were enrolled in pre-primary education programmes while 1.7% were attending primary schooling.
“At regional level, the percentage of the population who were attending ECD was higher in areas such as Oshana at 53.5% and the Ohangwena Region at 51% while those not attending were more prominent in regions such as the Kunene Region at 76%, Omaheke at 72.4% and the Kavango East Region at 60.1%,” the NSA said.
The main reason for not attending at national level was distance to centres, which was cited by 41.6% of the target population, while 36.2% were not attending due to illness, the NSA noted.
Illness and disability accounted for less than 2% of the reasons for not attending ECD.
At national level, 36.2% of the surveyed population cited financial constraints as the reason for not attending ECD programmes, 41.6% cited distance to ECD centres, 15.7% cited did not categorically specify reasons for not attending while only 1.4% cited illness as the reason for not attending ECD programmes.
Some 4% of the surveyed population could not provide a reason for not attending ECD programmes.
OGONE TLHAGE