Abstract/Notes: In multiethnic and multilinguistic Kenya, Montessori education began in 1969 with Kenyan teachers attending training in Tanzania. Today, Montessori education in Kenya has grown to include over 200 early childhood programs and several elementary programs in both rural and urban areas. A distinctive part of Kenyan Montessori training is teachers making their own materials out of local ingredients at workshops that are part of each training college which helps make Montessori education more affordable. National-level coordination through the Montessori Teachers Association of Kenya, founded in 2009, working alongside Association Montessori Internationale has resulted in official recognition of Montessori early childhood curriculum, making it the only foreign curriculum recognized by the Kenyan government.

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-350-27561-4 978-1-350-27560-7 978-1-350-27562-1

Series: Bloomsbury Handbooks

Abstract/Notes: Kenya distinguishes itself from other sub-Saharan African countries with its well-established system of early childhood development and education (ECDE). This chapter describes environmental, economic and social-cultural circumstances in Kenya and how these affect ECDE program design, curriculum and preschool activities. The author will provide a brief historical overview of early childhood educational contexts in Kenya and how preschool teachers meet minimum standards of a quality program using Guidelines for Early Childhood Development in Kenya (NACECE (National Center for Early Childhood Education). (2003). Guidelines for early childhood development in Kenya. Nairobi: Author.) with an African approach. Specific focus will be given to the diverse and contrasting program settings for early childhood care and education from the affluent city suburbs to the rural agrarian farms and the arid and semi arid (ASAL) areas of Kenya.

Language: English

Published: Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Netherlands, 2013

ISBN: 978-94-007-4972-6 978-94-007-4971-9

Series: Educating the Young Child

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this study was to establish the challenges faced by Montessori Colleges in Kenya in implementing competitive strategies. The study used descriptive survey design. The target population for the study were the 16 colleges that offer Montessori course only. Twelve colleges responded representing a 75% response rate. A semi-structured questionnaire consisting of closed and open-ended questions was used to collect data using the drop and pick method. The study revealed that operational costs, high competitive levels, and no marketing budget were the major challenges. In addition, strategies like low cost staff, part-time teachers hired on a needy basis, taking advantage of any attractive opportunity and use of using the students to market the college and were used heavily in the colleges. Based on the findings, it was recommended that cost leadership strategy be taken into account to maintain competitiveness. This is because cost being a major challenge requires that firms pay a great deal of attention to discretionary costs and look for ways of bringing the costs down. According to Porter (1985) pp 13, 'a cost leader, however cannot ignore the bases of differentiation. If its product is not perceived as comparable or acceptable by buyers, a cost leader will be forced to discount prices well below competitors' to gain sales.' This may result in the firm invalidating the advantages of its cost position.

Language: English

Published: Nairobi, Kenya, 2010

Abstract/Notes: When children enter preschool or kindergarten, they often seem to bring a spirit of wonder, great curiosity, and a spontaneous drive to explore, experiment and manipulate playfully and originally. Learning environments have been perceived to have the dual role of promoting as well as killing creativity. This has been attributed to the fact that as a child progresses through school years, teaching and learning become more dominant as play and self-exploration are stifled. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between play and creative drawing in Kenyan preschool children. A comparative study of the Montessori and the traditional public school system was carried out 48 preschool children between the ages of 4 and 6. Half were enrolled in Montessori while the other half in public schools Kenya. Through a qualitative design by the use of the Test of Creative Thinking Drawing Production (TCT-DP) (Urban & Jellen, 1996), and Rubin’s (2001) Play Observation Scale analyses were carried out. Independent sample t tests, Pearson product moment correlations and stepwise hierarchical multiple regressions were computed to determine whether interactions and differences in social play, cognitive play and creative drawing performance were apparent between Montessori and traditional public preschools. Statistically significant results were obtained indicating that Montessori children engaged in cognitive play more than public preschool children and had higher scores on creativity than public preschool children. In addition, age differences in social play as well as in creativity scores were found. However, no gender differences were apparent in social play, cognitive play or in creativity scores.

Language: English

Published: Munich, Germany: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2013

ISBN: 978-3-8316-4284-7

Language: English

Language: English

ISSN: 1470-8647

Language: English

ISSN: 1470-8647

Language: English

ISSN: 1470-8647

Abstract/Notes: This study was conducted in Kenya and focused on the use of instructional materials at the Early Childhood level. Purpose of the study was to establish the implications of instructional materials on oral skills among early childhood learners. The study adopted descriptive survey design. The target population comprised 42 head teachers, 126 teachers and 3180 leaners. It was found that that teaching using instructional materials improved the performance of learners in various learning activities such as repetition of letters, repetition of words and ability to write dictated words. The improved performance was in a range of 11% to 18%.

Language: English

DOI: 10.15739/IJEPRR.16.004

ISSN: 2360-7076

Abstract/Notes: The current system of education in Kenya is the 8-4-4 structure, where children study for eight years of Basic (primary) education, four years of Secondary education and four years of University education. This system was introduced in 1985 to promote man-power capable of performing blue collar jobs, as compared to the former 7-6-3 system that targeted developing a local workforce to replace the British workforce who largely held white collar jobs in the new, independent Kenya. However, over the years, the 8-4-4 curriculum has been widely criticised for a myriad of reasons. The criticisms against this curriculum are that it is too heavily loaded with content, purely examinations-oriented, and generally violating the Rights of the Child by placing undue physical and psychological pressure on learners. In order to address this problem therefore, a new curriculum was hastily crafted and taken through a rushed pilot drive in April 2017 and is expected to replace the current 8-4-4 system by January 2018. Admittedly, this new education system addresses some of the weaknesses of the current 8-4-4 education system, since it is competency-based and focuses more on skills acquisition as opposed to a purely knowledge-based acquisition system. The issues addressed in this paper is how this new and hurriedly crafted curriculum (as well as the introduction of Free Secondary School Education) will be implemented by teachers who are yet to come to terms with the new paradigm shift of teaching and learning. The second issue addressed is whether the crafters of this system took into consideration children’s rights, or whether at all, the system was crafted from a child-centred perspective. The concerns are that apart from the manner in which this syllabus was been crafted and planned for implementation, if not reviewed comprehensively may not only violate the rights of future generations of children, but also enhance negative ethnicity from a linguistic perspective

Language: English

ISSN: 2394-9686