Early Childhood Education in Nigeria

Early childhood education (ECE) is an essential aspect of formal education provided to children from birth to age 8 to promote their cognitive, social, and emotional development, language and speech development, and the development of fine and gross motor skills. ECE reduces the rate of school dropout, promotes higher levels of school achievement, and helps to curb the juvenile arrest rate. However, ECE faces many bottlenecks that can hinder its effectiveness. This is true throughout the world and in Nigeria in particular.
The challenges to Nigerian ECE include poor infrastructure facilities, low teachers’ salaries, inadequate implementation of the early childhood curriculum, employment of unqualified and incompetent teachers with little or no in-depth knowledge of early childhood and appropriate developmental Practices, corruption, and poor funding. The Proliferation of ECE according to Nigeria`s National Policy on Education is a pertinent issue that has led to poor standards and a lack of proper regulation of ECE institutions across the country. Further, the language of the immediate environment as a medium of instruction is not strictly adhered to in most states in Nigeria among others. This study provides an overview of Nigeria`s educational System which birthed ECE in the country.