and strategy formulation. The ECD Technical Forum carried out a review of existing policies and provisions on ECD during 2004 and is in the process of developing a framework for a comprehensive national ECD policy. 8.1.8 Early Childhood Care and Protection Early childhood care and protection (ECCP) is defined in this context to include proper feeding; provision of clothing, shelter and health care. It also involves interacting with a child; providing a stimulating and safe environment for play and exploration and providing guidance, love and affection. Other aspects of ECCP are provision of security and legal protection; enabling and developing self esteem and self confidence; and providing emotional support. Although there is no uniform pattern of care, ECCP in Uganda is mainly provided at household level. Mothers, grand mothers, older children and neighbours care for the children. Working practice has been for the mothers to collect young girls from rural areas to care for their children, employ maids or send their children to day care centres (ECD Taskforce, 1997). There are also a few mushrooming day care centres, the good quality ones being too costly for the ordinary women to afford. These centres are only in the major cities and municipalities. The ability of caregivers to provide adequate ECCP is limited due to the following factors: resources available at the household level for care givers are inadequate due to biting poverty in the country and the stress associated with it; care givers lack required skills, knowledge, physical capacity, consistency and responsiveness to a child‟s needs. The quality of child care and protection in Uganda is therefore characterized by poor feeding practices; poor health care practices; inadequate household food; lack of psycho-social stimulation and child abuse. Key challenges in ECCP identified include inadequate resource allocation by government to ECCP activities; poverty in households; high illiteracy among parents; poor care practices; and insecurity and armed conflict in some parts of the country which creates unfavourable conditions for ECCD. 8.1.9 Early Education and Learning Early Childhood care and development (ECCD) in Uganda takes two forms. There is ECCD that entails stimulation and learning. This method gets children to socialize, learn games and songs and they are provided food. It stimulates child growth physically, socially and opens their mind to academics. Supported to start up, these operate with modest contributions from the community. Secondly, there is ECCD that is aimed at academic development. Most of these services are referred to as nursery or pre-primary schools. Since most of these are privately own, their focus is academics and they end up drilling the children to learn a lot in order to impress the public at the disadvantage of the child. The first category of ECCD centres are developed by communities with support from UNICEF and Save the Children in Uganda, and these are common in IDP camps and rural areas. The second category is urban based and for income generation. It is reported that only 17 are reported to be government owned. A total of 64,484 children aged 2-6 years were enrolled at preprimary schools during 2003. Only about 2.6 per cent of primary entrants attend some form of organized ECCD programme. Government is aware and concerned about the need for quality of ECCD and has taken concrete action in this area. This includes putting in place an ECD education policy and training of teachers. This has however not been fully implemented due to lack of funds. Other interventions include training of teachers, most of which is provided by the private sector with guidelines and supervision from government. 32