Responses from Principals

The principals of Early Childhood Institutions were asked to complete an online survey that sought to measure the impact of COVID-19 on ECD programmes and assess the training needs of practitioners. A total of 567 principals responded to the Principals’ Survey.

72.5% reported that they are principals of Basic Schools.

7.6 % indicated that they are principals of Infant Departments and 6.7 % indicated that they are principals of Kindergarten and prep schools.

77.1% principals were aware of the distance learning prior to COVID-19 outbreak.

42% indicated that they learnt about distance learning via the internet.

28.2% indicated that they learnt about distance learning from watching television and 13.6% from interactive sessions.

According to the results, majority of principals (95.2%) indicated that their ECIs’ provided remote curriculum instructions for parents and children to follow.

The survey also revealed that 94.5% of principals uses WhatsApp to provide remote curriculum instructions and activities.

Based on the nature of the responses, it was further revealed that principals used more than one medium to provide curriculum instructions and activities. Other popular mediums included emails, Google classroom, Zoom and ECC website.

72.3% of principals indicated that learning instructions is sent to parents daily, 8.1 indicated instructions were sent once per week, 8% twice per week and 5.4% every other day.

64% principals indicated that their staff have the technical skills to integrate digital services in curriculum instructions. However, majority of principals indicated that their staff needed additional training in ICT and Curriculum.

June 2020