Title: Navigating The Early Years: An Investigation Into Pre-Primary Teachers' Knowledge And Implementation Of The One-Year-Pre-Primary Curriculum For Holistic Child Development In Nigeria
Authors: ADEDOKUN, O. A, ADEDIRAN, Aliu Adedayo
Volume: 9
Issue: 5
Pages: 58-67
Publication Date: 2025/05/28
Abstract:
The curriculum, encompassing lessons and academic content, serves as the primary vehicle for delivering educational programs and activities. In Nigeria, the government has actively supported the sustainability of early childhood education, notably including a compulsory one-year pre-primary level through financial investment, infrastructure development, provision of learning materials, and qualified staffing. However, the intended benefits of this pre-primary year for children and society appear unrealized. A key challenge identified is the limited curriculum awareness, encompassing both content and implementation strategies, among pre-primary teachers. This gap in appropriate teaching practices is often linked to inadequate qualifications, professional skills, school type, and experience necessary for providing high-quality early childhood services, particularly in fostering children's physical, social, and emotional growth. This study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population for the study comprise all public and private pre-primary schools and teachers in Ijebu-Ode Local Government. 100 pre-primary school teachers were randomly selected as sample for the study. Two (2) pre-primary teachers were selected from 25 randomly selected public and private schools. Six (6) research questions guided the study. Two Researcher- designed instruments were used for data collection namely; Teacher's Questionnaire on Knowledge of One-year pre-primary curriculum towards physical, social and emotional development of children (TQKOPCPSDC) and Teacher's Class Observation Schedule on Implementation of One-year pre-primary curriculum towards physical, social and emotional development of children (COS), the reliability index of the instruments are (?= 0.79)and (?= 0.84) respectively. The study among other revealed that the one-year-pre-primary curriculum is available and to some extent implemented. It was recommended among others that, further sensitization, training and retraining of teachers both on knowledge and implementation of the one-year pre-primary curriculum is pertinent. This would not only sustain the knowledge and expertise of the teachers but also improve their professionalism especially the implementation aspect. This if done, would have positive influence on the holistic development of children.