https://ojld.org/index.php/education <p><strong>Guide To Authors</strong></p> <p>The <em>Open Journal of Learning and Development </em>(OJLD)<em> </em>is a peer reviewed open access published three (3) times a year. It<em> </em>publishes manuscripts in the field of education, research and development sector. The written manuscript must be of a quality and context that the Editorial Board think would be of interest to an international readership.</p> <p>The aims and scope of the journals are to:</p> <ul> <li>Provide a journal that reports experiences and research on topics that are of regional and international significance across educational contexts, research and development sector practices and experiences.</li> <li>Publish high quality manuscripts that are of regional and international significance in terms of design and/or findings.</li> <li>Encourage collaboration by regional and international teams of researchers from universities, institutes and NGOs to create special issues on varied topics.</li> </ul> Open Journal of Learning and Development (OJLD) en-US Education & Child Development 3104-9621 https://ojld.org/index.php/education/article/view/11 <p align="justify">Instructional resources are essential elements which greatly determine the quality of early childhood education and the active engagement of children in learning activities. This paper explores the provision of instructional materials and its impact on the enrolment of school children in pre-primary education in Kakamega County in Kenya. The study was based on the Ecological Systems Theory developed by Bronfenbrenner, which contends that child development is directly influenced by environmental factors such as the availability of learning materials. The correlational research design was adopted, where the study population included 909 public pre-primary schools and 1875 pre-primary teachers in the sampled public pre-primary schools in Kakamega County. A sample size of 113 respondents was selected using stratified random sampling based on sub-counties. The sample was distributed across respondent categories as follows: 70 pre-primary teachers, 23 head teachers, 5 sub-county program officers, and 15 parents. The methods used in the collection of data included questionnaires, which were used to collect data among the teachers and parents, observation schedules were used to observe the availability of the resources and interview schedules were used to collect data among education officers and head teachers. Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation analysis were employed to analyze quantitative data while qualitative data were analyzed thematically. The research found that instructional materials were poorly provided in the majority of pre-primary schools, with 42.86% of the schools reported having insufficient textbooks, 57.14% of the schools had inadequate charts, and other teaching aids and learning materials. The correlation analysis demonstrated that there is a positive relationship between the supply of instructional resources and school participation (r=0.458, p=0.002). The regression analysis revealed that school participation was explained by instructional resources that had a variance of 21.0 (R2=0.210, p&lt;0.05). The results of the interviews indicated that pre-primary schools that had sufficient instructional materials were associated with a high enrolment rate, good attendance and enhanced retention rate compared to those that had inadequate materials. This research found that school participation among children in pre-primary in a significant way depends on the supply of instructional resources in Kakamega County. It is recommended that the county government should allocate more budget to purchase instructional materials, develop equitable distribution mechanisms, and offer frequent training to teachers on how to make optimal use of available materials and develop more effective monitoring mechanisms to ensure adequate and quality instructional resources in all ECDE centers.</p> Recho Shilenje Copyright (c) 2026 Education & Child Development 2026-05-25 2026-05-25 1 1