Rethinking Early Learning and Development Standards in the Ugandan Context
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Date
2013
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Childhood Education
Abstract
Early childhood development (ECD), either as a process, program, or service provided to young
children from birth to 8 years of age, has always existed in Africa, although not in the form that
is recognized as ECD today. Reports describe novel African child-rearing and care practices that
have nurtured children to a level where they have been able to outcompete their counterparts
in other parts of the world (Harkness, Super, Barry, Zeitlin, & Long, 2009). Most of these
child-rearing practices and their implications for children have either not been documented or
have been refused dissemination by international publishing houses that may consider them as
unusual, with no Euro-American worldview (Arnett, 2008; Pence & Marfo, 2008). In the end,
African communities are always expected to continue learning “best practices” in the fi eld of ECD
from the West, even if they have better experiences.
As ECD professionals and practitioners begin celebrating the dawn of a new era for ECD, which started in 1989 with
ratifi cation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the launch of Education for All (EFA) in 1990, and a series
of other conferences and publications, ECD in Africa continues along an uncertain path. Concerns that the African child is
being tailored to be a “global child,” alongside other homogenizing and dominating projections, such as early learning and
development standards (ELDS), have increased (Pence & Nsamenang, 2008). African communities need to be assured that
global standards and global indicators will not further homogenize nations and thereby risk devaluation of traditional African
practices (Kagan, Britto, & Engle, 2005)
Description
Keywords
Early Learning, Development Standards, Ugandan Context
Citation
Godfrey Ejuu (2013) Rethinking Early Learning and Development Standards in the Ugandan Context, Childhood Education, 89:1, 3-8, DOI: 10.1080/00094056.2013.755105