Training of quality early childhood development (ECD) teachers is paramount in ensuring quality ECD service provision. This exploratory study focuses on the gains and challenges met in the implementation of the Uganda ECD teacher training framework. Data were obtained using questionnaires and interviews from principals and tutors of ECD teacher training institutions (n = 106) who participated in a framework familiarization workshop. Results indicated some gains in use of the framework, while other areas still need more support for it to be effectively implemented. Major challenges were found in institutional management and administrative set ups, tutor competencies, and trainee assessment. The article concludes with specific recommendations for technical assistance to promote effective implementation of framework so as to produce better ECD teachers in Uganda.
Human flourishing has recently gained more attention in the world as a prerequisite safety net for better human resilience in uncertain times. While most Western authors believe that human flourishing is an individual issue, gained in later life, African communities that are largely communal may not have the same view. Communalism as opposed to individualism as a key pillar in African Ubuntu thinking makes it a possibility that there is a departure in the contextualisation of human flourishing and its pathways. This explores the African conceptualisation of flourishing in the Ubuntu lens and how communities are coming together to cultivate it by implementing home based early childhood learning centres. Desk review was used to learn the contextual meaning of human flourishing and different pathways to it in African community settings. Home based early learning centres operated by parents was seen as a core activity to nurture Ubuntu, as each family and community member becomes useful in provide a service that helps others to flourish at different stages of life. The paper concludes that the use of the home-based early childhood model as a flourishing intervention helps to engage every member of the community for the good of their children, bringing live the Ubuntu saying “I am a person because of other persons.” This study is significant in that it proposes home-based early learning as a more viable pathway way to human flourishing and redirects the focus of flourishing to a younger age group.
The rapid increase in linguistic diversity in schools worldwide over the past two decades has prompted a new generation of research on the impact of early bilingual experience on the literacy development of young children. So far, the field has concentrated on such impact among typically-developing children. In this editorial, we argue that this line of research should be expanded to focus on struggling readers, or children at-risk for reading disabilities. Documented similarities in the distinctive linguistic and cognitive profiles of struggling readers who are monolingual and bilingual, combined with mounting evidence for bilingual advantage in verbal and non-verbal abilities, have led us to hypothesize that delay in reading development among struggling readers may be mitigated by bilingual experience through three mechanisms: a) enhanced attention control that allows for more efficient use of working memory during reading; b) increased sensitivity to linguistic structures; and c) availability of compensatory reading strategies through literacy development of a second language. These three mechanisms are explicated in this editorial to call for a new research agenda in the field of childhood and developmental disorder.
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