Effect of early childhood education school management on pupils’ competences in pre-primary schools of Rwanda

Abstract

The research investigated the effect of early childhood education school management on pupils’ competences in pre-primary schools of Rwanda. Given that the school management in Rubavu-Rwanda was apparently not set to provide effective support to the acquisition of the adequate competences for the pre-primary pupils, the researcher’s attention was attracted and aimed at finding out the effect of early childhood education school management on pupils’ competences in pre-primary schools of Rwanda. The target population of this research was 5646 population, from which a sample size of 96 respondents were chosen as the participants either 8 educational leaders (head teachers) or 16 teachers or 72 parents chosen from eight schools of 4 sectors of Rubavu District and they were sampled using a simple random and purposive sampling techniques. This investigation adopted a survey research design which used questionnaires and guided interviews as instruments of data collection. In this research, two questionnaires were administered and collected from parents and teachers while the interviews were administered to head teachers. The findings indicated that there are a number of factors of school management that weaken the development of pre-primary adequate competences among others teacher recruitment of qualified teachers, lack of educational leaders monitoring of teaching in pre-primary classes, lack of professional development for ECE teachers, lack of material delivery and others equipment for pre-primary and lack of awareness about the requirements for ECE children including inappropriate nutrition. Recommendations went to the Ministry of Education and affiliated institutions requesting further investment in pre-primary school management by empowering school leaders and raising their awareness on all aspects of Early Childhood Education to facilitate their support towards ECE teachers who are the primary agents for the development of early childhood education pupils’ competences.