Early childhood education is essential to the success of children in school and in life. Without publicly funded early childhood education, city children would not have entered classrooms until age 7, while their middle-class and rich peers have the advantage of private schooling and exposure to books and educational resources from an early age. Their parents are concerned primarily with survival.

So much in a child’s development is determined in their first six years. Parents agree: when we opened our kindergarten in the town of Mojo, we had five hundred families waiting outside our doors to compete for 120 seats.

Many rural children still have no school within miles. Given the distances and the rigid daily schedules of town schools, too many rural children in Ethiopia are excluded from all education and opportunity.