They have the potential to help good-quality earlychildhoodprogrammes lay strong foundations for learning and development, and improve lifelong opportunities, particularly for vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
Despite these impressive gains in primary and secondary education, most Bahraini children, particularly those from poor families, still have limited access to comprehensive and quality earlychildhood education (ECE) due to: poverty and limited State investment in or support of ECE programmes (in fact, comprehensive early education programmes are non-existent in the country) and the fact that child participation in pre-school classes is largely seen as a luxury.