The role of play for early childhood development in Kinondoni

Kambugu, Nyamatekele (2014) The role of play for early childhood development in Kinondoni. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

This study investigated the role of play for early childhood development in Tanzania; a study of selected early childhood centres in Kinondoni district. It applied qualitative approach where descriptive analysis was done. The study involved 42 and 12 parents and teachers respectively; teachers sample was obtained through purposive sampling from six selected early childhood centres and parents sample was obtained through random sampling. Questionnaires, interview and observation methods were used to collect data from the selected sample. The descriptive analysis was done and results showed that 95% of parents view play as a strong component of early childhood development and 66.6% of teachers reported to have play activities like sports day, study tours in their school time table/ calendar. The study further revealed that 84% of the visited centres have had enough rooms for the children to study with only 16% lacking enough rooms for the children to learn. 50% of the centres have play grounds and 33% were staffed with necessary equipment for children play. It further 35.7% of the visited households had play grounds staffed with toys like bicycles, balls, baby toys, car toys that encourage children to play and 64.3% lacked enough space as play ground with children playing along the corridors of their homes and on the surrounding local roads with no facilities for play which put them into risk of colliding with road users like motorcycles. It was concluded that the quality of play in early childhood development have far reaching impacts on child’s mental skills, motor skills and social skills development. The study recommended that the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training should put emphasis on all childhood centers to be equipped with enough facilities to encourage children play. Also recommended the study to be conducted across the country to see the status of childhood development centers.

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