Peer-reviewed article
Early Childhood Education as an Instrument for Good Governance in Nigeria
Nnenna Clara Okoroafor, Eniola Olutoyosi Akande, Mosunmola Grace Ikuenomore, Ijeoma Evelyn Onuegbu ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This paper argues that early childhood education in Nigeria, covering ages 0–8 years from crèche through primary three, can promote good governance by teaching children social and moral skills such as accountability, empathy, kindness and truthfulness. The authors contend that many developing nations face social, economic and political problems because children lack adequate early childhood education and training in these values. They conclude that governments should encourage parents to enrol children in early childhood education programmes to build the foundation for good governance among future leaders.
Key points
- Early childhood education in Nigeria spans ages 0–8 years, from crèche through primary three
- Social skills taught at this stage include friendship, volunteering, sympathy, kindness, empathy, truthfulness and accountability
- Good governance depends on citizens with strong social and moral habits developed in early childhood
- Under-development in Nigeria is linked to parental and teacher negligence regarding the importance of early childhood education
- Government should encourage parents to enrol children in early childhood education
Limitations
This is a conceptual paper without empirical evidence, data, or evaluation of any specific early childhood education programme in Nigeria. It presents arguments and reasoning but cannot demonstrate whether or how early childhood education actually affects governance outcomes or which specific programme features work best.
Abstract
This paper examined Early Childhood education as an instrument for good governance in Nigeria. Good governance, is a situation whereby those in power decides what is to be implemented or not without making the governed feel marginalized. Good governance requires certain characteristics before one can say it is good. Characteristics like accountability, vividness, responsive participatory attributes, effectiveness and efficiency in duties, follow up of all the due process of the law are needed. In Nigeria, Early Childhood education is an education given to children in a formal school setting. It starts from 0-8 years, which means that the child starts from crèche through primary three to acquire this education. At this stage, children are taught social norms and social skills like friendship, volunteering, sympathy, kindness, empathy, truthfulness and accountability. It has been observed that most developing nations are experiencing the problem of under-development economically, socially, politically and morally to mention but a few. This problem could be traced to negligence, non-challant attitude as well as unawareness of what good early childhood education entails on the part of parents and teachers. Since good governance is directly related to social and moral habits, good governance cannot be achieved if people being governed are socially and morally undeveloped, which may be due to the fact that they do not have good social skills due to lack of training at the early childhood stage of education. Therefore, the good governance characteristics for the future leaders should be imbibed in early childhood education. Hence, there is need for the government to encourage parents to enroll their children in early childhood education.