The following challenges have been identified with regard to provision of quality early childhood education (ECE): training institutions are mainly located in urban centres; play and instructional materials are inadequate; tuition for teachers and school fees for pre-school is not affordable by the majority of the population; understaffing in most training institutions; inadequate community initiative; and poverty and lack of awareness among parents regarding the importance of ECE. Another challenge is at the policy level where there are some boarding nurseries or pre-primary schools. This is against the spirit of the Charter that requires that children grow in the family under the care of parents. While government policy is clear on this, government is yet to design an appropriate approach to crack down violators of the policy. Other challenges in provision of ECCD services are that it is a relatively new concept to many people in Uganda including policy makers and planners, no specific and comprehensive policy strategy to guide and direct ECCD interventions exists; lack of data on ECCD issues; inadequate coordination of ECCD actors and lack of conscious planning for ECCD at all levels. Government has therefore established an ECCD technical forum to provide policy and strategic guidelines; strengthen capacity for ECCD planning; promote advocacy for ECCD and monitor and evaluate ECCD activities in the country. In complementing government efforts, development partners have offered support in the form of the provision of textbooks, teacher training and classroom construction for early childhood education. Partners on ECD include the World Bank, DFID, UNICEF, USAID, Government of the Netherlands and Ireland, European Union (EU), DANIDA, WFP, Redd Barna (Save the children Norway), and ADRA. Despite the above interventions and achievements, there are still a number of tasks to be undertaken and challenges to be addressed. These include sustenance of TDMS operations particularly the recruitment, deployment (especially to remote parts of the country), training of teachers to meet the current urgent teacher demand and improvement in the conditions of service of teachers; management of sector wide approach and capacity building at district level (especially in utilization of UPE funds, accountability, inspection and supervision). Other challenges are information management for education sector; and management and control of private sector institutions and minimum quality standards. 33