A Comparative Study of the Practices of Early Childhood Care and Education across Private, Government, International and Missionary Preschools in Addis Ababa
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Date
2020-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In Ethiopia, it has been recently that the larger society has understood the benefits of early
childhood care and education, and until recent times, many have claimed that it is overlooked by
the government and left for the private and other religious and charitable organizations which
are not accessible for and affordable by the larger community. Aware of what is going on in this
area around the world, parents and education professionals are asking about the ways how
children are learning and the access and types of care they are getting from their teachers and
the preschools. Above all, teachers‟ qualification and training is a key discussion point of the
area. This study is, therefore, a comparative exploration of the practices of early childhood care
and education across private, government, international and missionary preschools of Addis
Ababa, The Capital City of Ethiopia. Through this major objective, the study has tried to
undertake a close observation of the home (parents) and the preschool (facilitators) interaction
in the process of child care and education. It also explored the extent at which teachers/schools
actually consider child-centeredness and play-based learning approaches accompanied by
developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices in their day-to-day practice.
Besides, the study has noted the type (s) of spoken language (s) that is (are) in use as medium of
teacher-child and parent interaction and instruction and the participation of parents in their
children‟s learning. In Ethiopia, the guiding principles of early childhood care and education, in
one-way or another, have been drawn from the theoretical insights of Piaget‟s foundational
cognitive theory and Vygotsky‟s contemporary sociocultural theory; and to consider its
objectives, the study is also informed by the theoretical understandings of these theories. This
study has employed qualitative research approach as a research methodology and it also used a
comparative multi case research design. The central subjects of the study were teachers,
children, parents, diploma early childhood care and education prospective graduate teachers of
2019 and officials of the area chosen based on purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The
data collection processes were held through interview, observation and focus group discussion.
Finally, the study concluded that most children are not given the opportunity to learn by
themselves; and most participants agreed that play has great benefits for childrens‟ learning;
however, the implementation did not match with this understanding. The study also showed that
early childhood care and education practices ares not developmentally appropriate and
culturally relevant; and the holistic aspect of child care is not well understood and implemented
throughout all study preschools. The other finding of the study is that the focus of the assessment
was mainly developed to measure the knowledge or the understanding level of children, and
mostly conducted through paperwork. The study also revealed that the participation of parents
on the learning their children is low, especially, in government preschools. Therefore, to
improve the area, all rounded interventions are needed; we need to revisit our early childhood XII
care and education training program and its implementation. The government, professionals,
training institutes, preschool owners and the society as a whole has to work hand-to-hand
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Keywords
Education across Private, Government, International, Education across Private, Government, International