A Comparative Study Of The Practices Of Early Childhood Care And Education Across Private Government International And Missionary Preschools In Addis Ababa

In Ethiopia, it has been recently that the larger society has understood the benefits of early rnchildhood care and education, and until recent times, many have claimed that it is overlooked by rnthe government and left for the private and other religious and charitable organizations which rnare not accessible for and affordable by the larger community. Aware of what is going on in this rnarea around the world, parents and education professionals are asking about the ways how rnchildren are learning and the access and types of care they are getting from their teachers and rnthe preschools. Above all, teachers‟ qualification and training is a key discussion point of the rnarea. This study is, therefore, a comparative exploration of the practices of early childhood care rnand education across private, government, international and missionary preschools of Addis rnAbaba, The Capital City of Ethiopia. Through this major objective, the study has tried to rnundertake a close observation of the home (parents) and the preschool (facilitators) interaction rnin the process of child care and education. It also explored the extent at which teachers/schools rnactually consider child-centeredness and play-based learning approaches accompanied byrndevelopmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices in their day-to-day practice. rnBesides, the study has noted the type (s) of spoken language (s) that is (are) in use as medium of rnteacher-child and parent interaction and instruction and the participation of parents in their rnchildren‟s learning. In Ethiopia, the guiding principles of early childhood care and education, in rnone-way or another, have been drawn from the theoretical insights of Piaget‟s foundational rncognitive theory and Vygotsky‟s contemporary sociocultural theory; and to consider its rnobjectives, the study is also informed by the theoretical understandings of these theories. This rnstudy has employed qualitative research approach as a research methodology and it also used arncomparative multi case research design. The central subjects of the study were teachers, rnchildren, parents, diploma early childhood care and education prospective graduate teachers of rn2019 and officials of the area chosen based on purposive and snowball sampling techniques. The rndata collection processes were held through interview, observation and focus group discussion. rnFinally, the study concluded that most children are not given the opportunity to learn byrnthemselves; and most participants agreed that play has great benefits for childrens‟ learning; rnhowever, the implementation did not match with this understanding. The study also showed that rnearly childhood care and education practices ares not developmentally appropriate and rnculturally relevant; and the holistic aspect of child care is not well understood and implemented rnthroughout all study preschools. The other finding of the study is that the focus of the assessment rnwas mainly developed to measure the knowledge or the understanding level of children, and rnmostly conducted through paperwork. The study also revealed that the participation of parentsrnon the learning their children is low, especially, in government preschools. Therefore, to rnimprove the area, all rounded interventions are needed; we need to revisit our early childhood XIIrncare and education training program and its implementation. The government, professionals, rntraining institutes, preschool owners and the society as a whole has to work hand-to-hand

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