University to community pilot preschool programme: The effects on learning environment, teachers’ attitude and children holistic development

Abstract

There is no gainsaying the fact that Early Childhood Education generally, and preschool education in particular, is faced with myriad of problems in Nigeria. Scholars, government agencies and non-governmental organisations have been struggling to find lasting solutions to these problems but the successes recorded have been quite insignificant. This might be as a result of the non-implementation of various research findings and the gap between the theories learnt and practices in preschools. It is, therefore, imperative for teacher trainers to take the policies, principles and theories of teaching to the preschool levels so as to serve as models. Some preschool sections in some public primary schools in Ibadan, Oyo State were selected and their needs in terms of learning resources, teaching force and developmentally appropriate instructions were attended to. Mixed methods research design of triangulation type was adopted. The data gathered after a term of 13 weeks revealed that there is a little improvement in the learning environment and the development of the children holistically. But the attitude of the teachers has not been changed significantly. Recommendations are made for future practices on the programme.

Keywords: Preschool education, learning environment, whole-child development, education theories and practices, preschool project.