Peer-reviewed article

Early Childhood Education in Pastoralist Regions of Kenya

John Teria Ng’asike, Beth Blue Swadener · 7 Feb 2025

Abstract

This article brings together two long-term collaborators with a focus on early childhood policy, curriculum, and practice in Kenya in the context of pastoralist childrearing, culture, and the transition to preschool in Turkana, Kenya. The first author is an Indigenous Turkana scholar who has done work on early childhood education in pastoralist traditional cultures and the second author has done research and volunteer work in Kenya for three decades with a focus on changing childrearing, early childhood policy, and disability and inclusion. In this article, we foreground issues of Indigenous culture and ways in which the new Kenya early childhood curriculum is inclusive and creates openings to strengthen this emphasis, as well as missed opportunities to do so. The first author shares work from a study on childrearing practices in Turkana communities and the transition to formal preschool, and both authors discuss environmental issues facing the community with potential for early childhood practices consistent with sustainability and cultural relevance. We discuss pastoralist children’s everyday cultural knowledge and children’s learning styles to argue for an inclusive early childhood curriculum in Kenya.