The importance of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in the provision of quality education cannot be over emphasised. ECE is key because it allows children a good start in life as it provides important opportunities to learn and develop in terms of educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, lifelong health, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation. ECE does not only help children make friends, develop independence, and learn new routines but it also supports their transition to school.
To enhance quality in ECE in Zambia, the VVOB country team has been implementing a five - year Improving Teaching Skills on Playful Learning for Africa’s Youngest (IT’S PLAY) Project in Zambia, Rwanda and Uganda since 2021. The intervention is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the ministry of education and its teachers to implement Learning Through Play ( LtP) in ECE. The intervention focuses on introducing playful learning for emergent literacy and numeracy and supporting the implementation of an innovative Teacher Professional Development (TPD) model to build play facilitation skills in ECE.
Annual reflection meetings among the three implementing country teams allow for the sharing of lessons, promotion of wider learning and improved intervention strategies.
One such visit was held in Kampala, Uganda from 6th to 8th June, 2023. The meeting had representatives from the three VVOB country teams and from VVOB Head Office, as well as from the Ministry and local partner organisations namely VSO, Plan International, and IPA who are also implementing interventions on LtP in the three countries.
The meeting identified key challenges in the provision of ECE in the targeted countries, particularly in the area of financing, human resource capacity, high attrition rates, initial teacher training and quality of induction of teachers. The meeting also reflected in enablers, for example the commitment of the targeted governments to embrace ECE, investments in infrastructure, parental interest to be engaged, coordination mechanisms in country, continuing professional development initiatives for ECE teachers, and the setting up of structures to support the roll out of ECE. emerging modalities for teacher CPD gives. Identified barriers, on the other hand, included the prioritization of access over quality, the limited understanding of the importance of play for learning for young children, limited understanding of how to monitor and support implementation of ECE, the inability to budget for play based ECE, limited availability of teaching and learning materials, low minimum standards for ECD tutors, high teacher/ pupil ratio, mixed age groups including 7-8 year olds, limited number of ECE qualified teachers, and high numbers of children not in school.
The meeting was focussed on sharing experiences, discussing and finalizing learning questions around Project implementation. The interactive discussions on barriers and enablers in Learning Through Play (LtP) in ECE led to the development of a ‘’Learning Through Play Readiness Tool” which integrates the different barriers and enablers. The tool has been developed from the experiences encountered during project implementation over the . The tool is now ready for testing in the three countries and once finalised will be presented at the 17th Conference on International Education and Development (UKFIET Conference 2023) at the University of Oxford in September 2023. The tool makes use of the education scalability checklist and includes a score card to ascertain country readiness to scale LTP in ECE for enhanced FLN skills.
The It’s Play Project is a five year Regional project implemented by VVOB in Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia in collaboration with Ministries of Education in Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia, with support from the LEGO Foundation.
