United Nations

Educational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization

EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS SERIES 3

Locally relevant and quality ECCE programmes:

Implications of research on indigenous African
child development and socialization
EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS SERIES 3

Locally relevant and quality ECCE programmes:

Implications of research on indigenous African
child development and socialization

Robert Serpell
University of Zambia, Zambia
A. Bame Nsamenang
Human Development Resource Centre, Cameroon
About the authors

Robert Serpell is Professor of Psychology at the University of Zambia (UNZA). His publications include Culture’s influence on
behaviour (1976), The significance of schooling (1993), Becoming literate in the city (2005), and peer-reviewed articles in a wide
range of journals. His research focuses on cultural aspects of human development, intelligence, multilingualism, literacy,
assessment and intervention services for children with disabilities and their families, and curriculum development. Formerly
Director of African Studies at UNZA, Director of Applied Developmental Psychology at UMBC, USA and Vice-Chancellor of UNZA,
he is currently Coordinator of UNZA’s Centre for Promotion of Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A. Bame Nsamenang teaches psychology and counselling at the University of Bamenda, Cameroon, where he heads the University
Cooperation Division as well as directing the Human Development Resource Centre, a research and service facility (www.thehdrc.
org). His work and research seek to understand and enhance Africa’s future generations. He leads an international initiative that
produces Africa-centric literature and tools for Early Childhood Development and teacher education. He has authored numerous
books and articles and networks for African voices into developmental and educative sciences.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this paper was greatly assisted by comments and suggestions received from Professors Robert LeVine, Kofi Marfo,
and Alan Pence, by constructive feedback from the Editors, and by Robert Serpell’s access as an Affiliate Visiting Professor to the
Library of Virginia Commonwealth University.

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CLD ED-2013/WS/38
Contents

List of boxes 4

Abstract 5

Introduction 7

Multiple dimensions of the African context 9

Extrapolations from developmental science

to the design of ECCE services in Africa 11

Culture-sensitive methods of assessment 14

Indigenous African conceptions of child development and socialization

practices 16

Child-to-Child: an African educational strategy 21

Culture-sensitive ECCE programming for rural African communities 23

Application: challenges, constraints and strategies 26

References 27
List of boxes

Box 1: Assessment of non-verbal cognition in an African context 15

Box 2: An African social ontogeny 17

Box 3: Indigenous African conceptualization of intelligence 18

Box 4: Indigenous African games and songs:

a neglected fund of knowledge for the enrichment of ECCE curricula 20

Box 5: Child-to-Child approach to education in an African public school 22

Box 6: The role of indigenous languages in ECCE 24

Abstract

Most sub-Saharan African societies competencies of children and mobilizing

display linguistic diversity, rapid social them to promote health. The design of
change, rural-urban contrasts in lifestyle ECCE services in Africa should focus on
and widespread biculturation. Planning local strengths including indigenous games
and delivery of early childhood care and and music, emphasize community-based
education (ECCE) services in the region have provision, incorporate participation by pre-
been constrained by the legacy of Western adolescent children; use indigenous African
colonial occupation, low prevalence of languages and local funds of knowledge;
literacy and limited institutionalization of and accord priority to inclusion of children
systematic research. Some international with special needs. Strategies are identified
agencies tend to construe ECCE as a to address the challenges confronting
compensatory intervention for children application of these recommendations.1
disadvantaged by poverty, primarily to
prepare them for formal schooling. They
also tend to exaggerate the degree of
scientific consensus about the optimal
conditions for children’s cognitive and
social-emotional development. The
validity of much research to date has
been constrained by reliance on a narrow
database, a narrow range of authorship
and a narrow range of culturally Western
audiences. Close attention is needed to the
unique sociocultural conditions of African
societies especially in rural areas, including
the strengths and limitations of local child-
rearing knowledge, attitudes and practices.
Culture-sensitive methods are essential
for unbiased assessment of young African
children, especially those with limited
access to Western cultural materials and
practices, and for effective communication
with their caregiving families. Distinctive
features of indigenous African approaches
to child socialization include emphasis
on social responsibility and widespread
involvement of pre-adolescent youth in the 1 The abridged version of this paper will be published
care of younger children. The Child-to-Child as a chapter under the title “The challenge of local
relevance: using the wealth of African cultures in
approach has been effectively deployed ECCE programme development” in a forthcoming
as a way of respecting the rights and UNESCO volume on ECCE to be published in 2014.
5
Introduction
Human development from infancy to
adulthood is acknowledged in all societies
as a process demanding protection, care
and guidance. In African pre-colonial
cultures these were provided by a child’s
mother, elder siblings, other community
adults and playmates (Erny, 1972; Fortes,
1938). With the advent of formal education,
certain aspects of support were assigned to
formal institutions such as madrassas and
primary schools, typically from around 5-7
years of age until puberty. However, access
to those institutions varied, depending on
the child’s gender, the family’s economic
and social status and religious adherence.
Despite widespread endorsement by African
governments of the principles of Education
for All (UNESCO, 1990), access to formal
education has remained uneven with many
rural children receiving less than their
urban peers.
The curricula of formal institutions varied
according to their cultural agenda. In the
Islamic madrassas and early Christian
mission schools, the emphasis was
on imparting basic literacy along with
moral principles and religious practices
(Snelson, 1974; Prochner and Kabiru, 2008;
Gwanfogbe, 2011). In the second half of the
twentieth century, in Africa and worldwide,
a broader range of subjects including
mathematics, science and social studies
were incorporated into institutionalised
public basic schooling (IPBS - cf. Serpell
and Hatano, 1997), a trend followed more
slowly by Islamic schools (Bray, Clarke and
Stephens, 1986).
Internationally, advocates of early childhood
care and education (ECCE) service
development have often focused attention on
mastery of the IPBS curriculum and justified
ECCE as a corrective to the disadvantage
suffered by children from low-income
families, which in Africa are predominantly
located in rural areas or urban slums.
Thus ECCE has been construed as part of a
broader modernization agenda through the
progressive appropriation of Western culture
in opposition to African traditions seen
as deficient and/or outdated (Callaghan,
1998). In this paper, we advance a different
perspective, arguing that Africa has its own
legitimate conceptions of child development
and strategies for supporting it and a rich
store of often neglected resources which
should be incorporated into ECCE and
higher education strategies and inform
future research.
For the majority of rural African children,
success in the IPBS curriculum is in
practice only loosely related to the more
fundamental agenda of preparation for
economic and social competence in
their local communities. While women’s
increasing access to schooling clearly has a
beneficial impact on the health of their young
children, multinational research on factors
mediating that impact suggests that more
than one causal pathway is involved (LeVine
and Rowe, 2009). Mothers who have been
to school may internalize new approaches
to the primary socialization of their infants
closer to middle-class European and north
American practices, but equally or more
important may be the fact that ‘Western-
type schools in the less developed countries
7
 provide children with a communicative
socialization that involves learning the
language of bureaucracy’ (LeVine et al,
2102, 57). This enhances comprehension
of public health messages disseminated by
radio and in print, and compliance with top-
down bureaucratic promotion of initiatives
such as immunization of under-5 children,
leading to higher child survival rates. It is
also possible that a key learning outcome
of short-term enrolment in low-quality,
basic schooling is appropriation of the
‘“hidden curriculum” values of discipline
and obedience of authority’ (Basu and
Stephenson, 2005, 2011).

We further contend that the indigenous

cultures of rural African families contain
many elaborate and effective, informal
socialization practices for nurturing
such competencies. ECCE initiatives in
rural areas should therefore build on
the strengths of indigenous cultures by
respecting their meaning-systems and
adapting their demonstrably beneficial
practices. For instance, in an era of falling
academic standards and the promotion
of consumerism, school curricula would
benefit from promoting values of reciprocal
accountability and cooperation evident in
African family traditions (see Pence and
Nsamenang, 2008).

Conditions relevant to the design and

delivery of ECCE services vary considerably
from one country to another. For purposes
of analysis, we shall sometimes refer to a
group of nations as the NoWeMics (Northern
hemisphere, Western culture, More
industrialised countries) and to another
group as the Majority World. As a result of
historical factors, NoWeMics receive higher
international prestige than the Majority
World (Kagitcibasi, 2007) where most of the
world’s population resides.

8
Multiple dimensions of the African context
The African region makes up around 20
per cent of the total land area of the earth
and accommodates about 15 per cent of
the world’s population. The economic and
political history of the 54 sovereign states
in the region is diverse. Following the
expansion of Arabic and Islamic influence
along the Mediterranean coast in the
seventh century, the nations lying north
of the Sahara have developed a distinctive
cultural and political orientation linking
them with the Arab states of the Middle
East. Within the sub-Saharan region, most
of the contemporary, post-colonial states
share sociocultural conditions that have a
direct bearing on the circumstances of early
childhood development: a history of colonial
occupation by a Western European power;
rural-urban contrasts in life-style; rapid
social change; widespread biculturation; low
prevalence of literacy; widespread poverty
(amidst rich natural resources exploited
by foreign-dominated corporations); high
prevalence of infectious and parasitic
diseases (including HIV and AIDS); and
limited institutionalization of systematic
research (on early childhood development
or indeed on any other topic).
In several countries of the region, a
European language, originally imposed by
Christian missionaries and/or a colonial
power, has been retained as the principal
medium of legislation, administration, mass
communication and education, resulting in
an enduring pattern of cultural hegemony
(Serpell and Hatano, 1997; Brock-Utne,
2002; Wolff, 2006). In Zambia, this language
is English, in Senegal, French (Ka and
Serpell, 2003), and in Angola, Portuguese.
Great social prestige is attached to these
languages and many parents want their
children to acquire greater competence in
them than they themselves have achieved.
Fishman (1967) and other sociolinguists
(e.g. Myers-Scotton, 2002) have built on the
concept of diglossia, originally proposed by
Ferguson (1959), to propose that in post-
colonial states the dynamics of spoken and
written communication follow a pattern of
differentiation between a formal language
of power and a more intimate language of
‘hearth and home’.
From a systems perspective (Bronfenbrenner,
1979), these macrosocial factors constrain
and potentiate the meso-level organization
of opportunities for young children to interact
with adults and other children in ways that
are systematically different from the eco-
cultural context of child development in
other societies. Mazrui (1986) has posited
that Africa is heir to a triple cultural
heritage, blending the ideas, institutions
and practices of Christianity, government
and bureaucracy imported from the West,
Islamic religion imported from the Middle
East and a set of deep-seated philosophical
themes endogenous to African culture.
Building on that analysis, Nsamenang (1992,
2005) has argued that while certain aspects
of the region’s exogenous cultural heritage
are fully integrated and appropriated within
contemporary African societies, others
remain in tension with the indigenous
perspective of the majority of Africans.
Serpell (1993, 1999b) has argued that for
some rural African communities, differences
between the indigenous concept of human
development and socialization and the
9
 formal educational model of cognitive growth
in public schooling, generates an enduring
challenge of local accountability by schools
to the community they aspire to serve.

A major challenge facing African societies

is how to coordinate their multiple linguistic
and other cultural resources in ways that
respect their integrity, minimize conflict and
generate productive syntheses consistent
with the goals of progressive social change.
Serpell (1993) has suggested that primary
school teachers have a special role to play in
Zambian society as ‘bicultural mediators,’
and Banda (2008) has advocated a syncretic
approach to curriculum development,
combining indigenous cultural resources
with ideas from Western culture (cf. Ball and
Pence, 2000, Barnhart and Kawagley, 2005,
Ismail and Cazden, 2005). Such tensions
and challenges are especially conspicuous
during early childhood development in which
parents worldwide tend to place greatest
confidence in intuitive beliefs. Therefore
policy-makers and practitioners should pay
special attention to documented knowledge,
attitudes and practices that inform public
response to systematically planned ECCE
services which have a relatively short history
in sub-Saharan Africa.

10
Extrapolations from developmental science
to the design of ECCE services in Africa
Scientific research on child development
dates back more than 100 years but until
recently the vast majority of studies were
conducted with children of middle-class
North-American or European families by
authors who grew up in such families, and
were addressed to a narrow range of primarily
Western audiences (Serpell, 1990; Arnett,
2008; Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan,
2010). Consequently, great caution should
be exercised when extrapolating the
concepts and theories originating from
that research to the rest of the world.
Given the long period of dependent infancy,
young children are extremely sensitive to
environmental influences, positive and
negative. On a biological plane, it is widely
agreed that the human brain develops
many of its highly specialised functions
through a process known as epigenesis:
gradual differentiation of the organism
through interaction between its genetic
code and the environment. But as Bruer
(1997) explained, the nature of changes in
neural structures and processes induced
by environmental variation is too complex
to warrant postulating direct connections
between the brain and education. In the
current cultural zeitgeist of ‘biologization’,
there exists a serious danger of allowing
weakly substantiated ‘brain science’
speculations (Hirsh-Pasek and Bruer, 2007;
Oates et al, 2012) to mask what are in fact
primarily cultural and ideological hunches
about what is ‘essential’ for healthy human
development (LeVine, 2002).
A distinctive feature of humans, compared
to other biological species, is their social
organization into groups that not only adapt
to but actively customise their habitat and
transmit cultural artefacts and practices
across generations. Thus the developmental
niche to which the infant must adapt in
the first few years of life varies across
cultures (Super and Harkness, 1986, 1997).
Moreover, even when academic success
is defined by culturally specific standards
in NoWeMic schools, phenomenally high
achievements by some culturally different
immigrant children from the Majority World
(Rong and Preissle, 1998) support the
general hypothesis that multiple pathways
exist from early childhood to longer-term
developmental outcomes.
The International Child Development
Steering Group (ICDSG) has proposed a
synthesis of theoretical ideas as a policy
guide to increase the quantity and quality
of ECCE services in areas where there is
less systematic, formal provision than in
the NoWeMics (Grantham-McGregor et
al. 2007; Walker et al. 2007; Engle et al.
2007). This synthesis weaves together a
political argument about social justice in
response to economic inequalities and a
technical argument about the strategic
benefits of prevention. In summary, these
authors contend that vast numbers of
children are placed at risk of premature
death, developmental disability or pathology
by conditions that could be changed for
the better early in their lives. Therefore,
resources should be channelled into such
interventions since the payoff is greater
than seeking to correct developmental
11
 consequences of early disadvantage at later
stages of life.
We agree with this broad line of reasoning
and advocacy. However, we take issue with
some of the ways in which the ICDSG has
marshalled supporting evidence, especially
as it applies to those in the Majority World.
Their approach tends to exaggerate the
degree of consensus within the scientific
community in order to convince lay audiences
and funding agencies that science has come
up with a definitive solution. One influential
hypothesis, grounded in the classic work of
Bowlby (1969) and Ainsworth et al. (1978),
has been that healthy social and emotional
functioning depends critically on a secure
attachment between infant and mother,
which in turn depends on specific patterns
of maternal behaviour. But aspects of this
interpretation have been challenged on the
grounds that responsibility for infant care
is variable across societies (Weisner and
Gallimore, 1977), and that the sensitivity of
a caregiver’s behaviour cannot be defined or
measured independently of cultural context
(e.g. Rothbaum and Morelli, 2005; Keller
and Otto, 2009).
Other examples of oversimplification in
several influential ECCE advocacy documents
are as follows. Parental discipline that
emphasizes egalitarian reasoning has been
shown to be more effective in promoting
healthy socio-emotional development
in middle-class Western families than
corporal or harsh verbal punishment
(Baumrind, 1989). But this finding has
not been consistently replicated in other
cultural settings where strict parenting is
widely endorsed (see Chao, 1994; Chen et
al, 2000; Last, 2000; Lansford et al, 2005;
Oburu, 2009). The negative impact of harsh
punishment on children’s mental health
seems to depend on how normative such
punishment is perceived to be (Lansford et
al, 2005, 2010). Structured, interactive play
is given an important role in the promotion
of children’s early cognitive development by
major Western psychological theories (e.g.
Piaget, 1951; Vygotsky (1933), but neither of
those theories attaches special importance
12
to the role of adults in such interactions.
Lancy (2007) has argued compellingly that
the Western patterns of mother-infant play
advocated by some ECCE programmes are
so inconsistent with cultural practices and
beliefs of many Majority World societies
as to be dysfunctional in those contexts.
The same may well be true of patterns of
speech addressed to infants, which vary
widely across cultures (see Schieffelin and
Ochs, 1986).
In our view, psychological intervention
programmes (educational or therapeutic)
must, for both epistemological and ethical
reasons, rely on the conscious, voluntary
participation of their recipients in the
programme. ‘The expert paradigm that
informs certain clinical interventions with
special populations takes the patient out
of her normal social context and replaces
it with an artificial one, structured to
optimize conditions for the amelioration
of the patient’s condition’ (Serpell,
1999a,  42). While such drastic intervention
may sometimes be warranted in times of
natural catastrophe, war or intrafamilial
abuse, ‘it is clearly impracticable and
politically unacceptable as a method
for the enhancement of developmental
opportunities in a large section of society.
That goal can only realistically be addressed
by working with and through the children’s
existing families’ (op.cit, 42).
The expert paradigm may be more justifiable
in the case of biological as opposed to social
processes. In the large-scale intervention in
Zambian schools by Grigorenko et al. (2007)
treatment of intestinal parasite infection
significantly enhanced the ability of learners
to follow instructions for an academic
task. Arguably, parents and teachers did
not need to understand the biomedical
processes involved in order to consent to
this intervention. A broad stroke explanation
and certification that the tablets were safe
may have been adequate. However, when
this paradigm is extended to modes of social
interaction between children and their
adult caregivers, intervention to change
the latter’s behaviour is likely to disturb the
prevailing sociocultural system. To abandon
a long-standing traditional practice calls into
question the indigenous theory that informs
it and may affect interpersonal relationships
in the child’s family and community as well
as the social distribution of responsibilities
for child-rearing.

One popular interpretation of Engle et al.’s

argument (2007) seems to rest on an analogy
with the GOBI strategy (UNICEF 1985) of
universal promotion of growth-monitoring,
Oral rehydration therapy, breast-feeding
and immunization. A new orthodoxy seems
to be emerging, designed to enhance the
development of children’s cognitive and
social-emotional competence through
stimulation and caregiver sensitivity. But
psychosocial intervention to optimise the
development of young children cannot be
operationalized with the same degree of
cross-cultural equivalence as a vaccine or
breast-feeding. Importing a culturally alien
package of cognitive stimulation would
only be justifiable if research showed that
existing, local stimulation techniques were
less supportive of children’s development
and such research evidence does not exist.

We believe that the design of appropriate,

effective ECCE services for African societies
requires close attention to the prevailing
sociocultural conditions especially in
rural areas, including the strengths and
limitations of local child-rearing knowledge,
attitudes and practices. Such attention has
been conspicuously absent from the vast
majority of ECCE intervention programmes.
This paper is devoted to exposition of some of
the more salient, widely recurrent features
of child development and socialization in
Africa and their implications for the optimal
design of ECCE programmes.

13
 Culture-sensitive methods of assessment
Much of the systematic research on early
childhood development in Africa has
been hampered by the use of imported
measures inadequately adapted to the
local context (Greenfield, 1997; Serpell
and Haynes, 2004; Stemler et al, 2009).
In recent years, however, research has
shown that it is possible to assess the
cognitive development of African children
in ways that take account of the learning
opportunities afforded by their home and
play environments (e.g. Kathuria and
Serpell, 1998) (see Box 1). The implications
of such endogenous test development
deserve close attention by researchers,
clinicians and educational service
providers in Africa, especially with respect
to early childhood and economically
marginal neighbourhoods.
An ambitious programme of cognitive test
development on the East Coast of Kenya
has paid special attention to children
with neuropsychological impairment
(PCD, 2002). This research group has
adapted tests originally developed
in the NoWeMics, noting that ‘some
psychological constructs show greater
functional universality than others. One
example is psychomotor development,
where motor control and co-ordination are
seen to develop in a universal sequence’
(Holding et al., 2008, 4). Thus Abubakar et
al. (2007, 2008) have reported impressive
evidence of the reliability and validity of
the Kilifi Developmental Inventory, to
assess the progress of children aged 6 - 35
months across developmental milestones
in the areas of locomotor skills and eye-
hand co-ordination. Unusual sensitivity
14
was shown in this applied research to the
perceptions by local, indigenous adults
(including parents) of the validity of test
items and the acceptability of assessment
procedures. This grounding of assessment
in the local culture gives providers of ECCE
services a powerful foothold from which
to collaborate with family members in the
design, implementation and monitoring of
health and educational interventions for
young children at risk for developmental
disabilities.
Looking to the future of this emerging
field of technical expertise in Africa,
Nsamenang (2009) has noted the need to
‘chart the conceptual leap’ from indicators
to underlying theoretical concepts about
human development, and for training
programmes to nurture the emergence
of ‘culture-informed and context-tuned
“experts” especially with the nerve and
adroitness to dare step out of the Euro
Western box to articulate their own
or creatively gain from donor-posited
guidelines and indicators’ (p.119). Valuable
groundwork for such psychometric
research and development has been
provided by the South African Human
Sciences Research Council’s Indicators
Project (Dawes et al., 2007) which
generated a detailed set of indicators for
monitoring early childhood development,
as well as child health status, injury
and mortality, mental health, disability,
specific difficulties of learning, abuse
and neglect, neighbourhood qualities,
education, and various hazards faced
by especially vulnerable children. If
quantitative research on the character
 Box 1: Assessment of non-verbal cognition in an African context

Numerous studies have reported that African children seldom attain performance levels regarded
as normal in the West on pattern reproduction and pattern reasoning tests such as Block Design
and Progressive Matrices. Serpell (1979) conducted an experimental test of the hypothesis that
such difficulties arise from unfamiliarity of the testing medium. Children from low-income urban
families in Zambia performed much better in wire modelling than low-income urban English
children, whereas the English children outperformed their Zambian peers in drawing with pencil
and paper. No significant difference was found between the two cultural groups in clay modelling
or hand position tests. Within the Zambian sample, boys outperformed girls in the wire modelling
and drawing tests, but not on clay modelling or hand position tests.

These findings inspired a programme of test development at the University of Zambia’s Psychology
Department for the assessment of general cognitive ability among children growing up in rural
African eco-cultural settings, many of whom enrol in school either relatively late in life or not at
all. The Panga Munthu Test (literally ‘Make a Person’ Test) (PMT) presents the child with clay
but no model to copy. Like the well-known American Draw-a-Person Test, the PMT invites the
child to produce a figure of a person from general knowledge and is scored for the amount of
appropriate detail of the human form included. Zambian norms have since been compiled by age
and by school grade, and guidelines published for using the test to assess the general cognitive
ability of a child relative to his or her peers (Kathuria and Serpell, 1998).

Most of the other current tests for children aged between 5 and 12 tend to presuppose general
exposure to Western artefacts such as written texts, pictures, puzzles, building blocks and TV, and
practices with adults such as joint storybook reading and face-to-face conversations including
‘known-answer questions’. Such exposure is quite rare and very unevenly distributed among
Africa’s children and is generally absent for those growing up in subsistence agricultural or
pastoral communities. The Panga Munthu Test presupposes only familiarity with the widespread
play activity of clay modelling and thus offers a less culturally biased approach to assessing the
cognitive functioning of rural African children. Several lines of evidence suggest that PMT taps
a dimension of cognition more relevant to children’s home environments than to the demands
of the school curriculum (Serpell and Jere-Folotiya, 2008). If so, the test may be especially
suitable for the intellectual assessment of African children who, for one reason or another, have
received less formal schooling than is prescribed by official public policy. Significant groups for
whom such assessments may be needed in the current era of Africa’s political economy include
children of school-age engaged in street vending, and children whose enrolment in school was
interrupted by premature death of a breadwinning head of household, or by civil war and forced
migration. As Alcock et al. (2008) have noted, populations that include large numbers of children
in such situations pose a special challenge for the design of appropriate standardization of
developmental tests.

and determinants of child development

in Africa is to progress, many more
instruments will need to be developed in
accordance with psychometric principles
to establish their reliability and validity
in African contexts (Grigorenko, 2009).
In the next section we turn to a set of
fundamental, conceptual issues essential
to such validation.
15
 Indigenous African conceptions of child
development and socialization practices
In this section, we present three
complementary approaches to knowledge
generation about child development and
socialization rooted in endogenous, African
ways of knowing: analysis of traditional
African proverbs, African theory-building and
documentation of indigenous African parental
ethno-theories. A widespread concern is
captured by Odora-Hoppers’ (2009, 603)
advocacy of an ‘integrative paradigm shift’,
in which ‘modernization proceeds without
following Western values ... or sequences, but
rather with a re-strengthening of core values
from different traditions of knowledge and
living... [and] indigenous peoples reclaim...
the custodianship over their knowledge in
public spaces along with the right to speak
and be determining agents of co-operative
contemporary change and creative knowledge
sharing of these knowledge systems.’
One line of scholarship has examined the
indigenous formulations of child development
and socialization values embedded in African
languages and oral traditions. Abubakar
(2011) presents an analysis of philosophical
ideas about education derived from Swahili
proverbs and concludes that ‘the adults in
the child’s environment, and not just the
parents, were given a duty to teach, guide
and educate the child’ (p. 99); and ‘an
important first step toward good citizenship
is to start teaching children very early how
to place the needs of the society/country
before personal needs, which is a deeply
entrenched principle intrinsic in almost
all ethnic communities throughout Africa
(p. 101). Several collections of proverbs have
been published in different African languages
16
(e.g. Milimo, 1972; Wamitila, 2001; Wanjohi,
1997). Abubakar (2011) suggests indigenous
educators in Africa might identify and reflect
on proverbs that have direct implications for
classroom teaching and school learning or
for the conduct and behaviour of teachers.
Marfo (2011), in a paper entitled Envisioning
an African child development field, poses the
question:
Is it possible to broaden Euro-
American theories and approaches to
accommodate indigenous perspectives,
or would consideration of such
perspectives require the development
of concepts and tools that may be so
idiosyncratic to local cultural realities as
to render cross-context comparisons and
generalizations meaningless? (p.142)
One response to this challenge is the
theoretical elaboration of an indigenous
West African social ontogeny by Bame
Nsamenang (1992) (see Box 2). Nsamenang’s
(1992) theory draws from writings by African
scholars in philosophy and the humanities
and is grounded in systematic observational
research and personal experience of
the socialization practices of the rural
Nso community, in Western Cameroon
(Nsamenang and Lamb, 1995). The growth
of social selfhood is construed as passing
through seven phases, each characterized
by a developmental task. The major focus
of the first, ‘pre-social’ phase is on social
priming: babies are cuddled and teased to
smile along with adults; parents and other
caregivers offer food items and playthings
 Box 2: An African social ontogeny

An African social ontogeny (Nsamenang, 1992) is a theoretical articulation phrased within an eco-
cultural perspective. Nsamenang’s (1992) theory of social ontogenetic development draws from
writings by African scholars in philosophy and the humanities (e.g. Mbiti, 1969, 1990; Moumouni,
1968) on worldview and social ontogenesis shared by different ethnic groups and grounded in a
combination of systematic observational research and personal experience of the socialization
practices of the rural Nso community in Western Cameroon (Nsamenang and Lamb, 1995). The
growth of social selfhood is in seven phases each characterized by a distinctive developmental task
defined within the framework of the culture’s primarily socio-affective, developmental agenda.
In the first phase, the ceremony of naming projects the kind of socialized being the neonate
should become. The major developmental task of this ‘pre-social’ phase is success in social
priming; babies are cuddled and teased to smile along with adults; parents and other caregivers
offer infants food items and playthings and lure them both verbally and through nonverbal
communication to return the ‘gifts’ - a prelude towards induction into the ‘sharing and exchange
norms’ that bond the social system. Rabain (1979) and Mtonga (2012) describe similar teasing
in their ethnographic studies, respectively, of Wolof child socialization practices in Senegal and
amongst the Chewa and Tumbuka peoples of Zambia’s Eastern Province, where such interactions
of adults with toddlers are interpreted as cultivating generosity and preventing the development
of greediness or selfishness.

The second phase of social ontogeny, ‘social apprenticing’, roughly corresponds with childhood.
Its principal developmental task is to recognize, cognize and rehearse social roles that pertain
to four hierarchical spheres of life: self, household, network and public. Adults assign family
and neighbourhood responsibility to pre-adolescent and adolescent children. Adult delegation
of responsibility for care and socialization of younger children serves the function of priming
the emergence of social responsibility. The priming strategies embedded in indigenous African
child-care practices have important implications for the design of culturally appropriate forms
of intervention to optimize developmental opportunities for children in contemporary Africa
(Nsamenang, 2009b).

and lure them verbally and nonverbally
to return the ‘gifts’ - a prelude towards
induction into the ‘sharing and exchange
norms’ that bond the social system. The
second phase, ‘social apprenticing’, roughly
corresponds with childhood. Its principal
task is to recognize, cognize and rehearse
social roles that pertain to four hierarchical
spheres of life: self, household, network and
public. Adults assign responsibility to pre-
adolescent and adolescent children including
the care and socialization of younger children
which serves the function of priming the
emergence of social responsibility. The
priming strategies embedded in indigenous
African child-care practices have important
implications for the design of culturally
appropriate forms of intervention to optimize
developmental opportunities for children
(Nsamenang, 2009b).
Whether this theoretical scheme would fit
across the many different societies in sub-
Saharan Africa is debatable. For instance,
Levine et al. (1994) describe mother-infant
interactions among the Gusii of rural Kenya
in the 1950s and 1970s that stands in marked
contrast to Nsamenang’s description of
social priming through cuddling and teasing.
Gusii mothers, according to Levine et al
‘are not expected to talk to or gaze at their
infants or play with them’ (p.148), and they
17
 explain how this (strange to Western eyes)
emotional detachment is compatible with
healthy emotional development in later life.
Part of their explanation is that the infants
receive playful stimulation and emotional
support from their elder siblings and other
child caregivers, which is consistent with
observations by Nsamenang in West Africa
and by Serpell in Zambia. The contrast
between these ethnographic accounts
serves as a warning that wide variations
occur across different ethnocultural groups
within the African region (cf. DeLoache and
Gottlieb, 2000), and that further detailed
research on socialization practices is needed
(Marfo, Pence, LeVine and LeVine, 2011).
A number of researchers have sought to
document through empirical research the
implicit ethno-theories held by African
parents and other indigenous experts about
child development and socialization (see

Box 3: Indigenous African conceptualization of intelligence

Serpell (2011) provides an overview of his programmatic research in an African society over a 40-
year period. His elaboration of the indigenous Chewa psychological construct nzelu was initially
motivated by doubts over the local validity of Western tests of intelligence when these were applied
in an African sociocultural context very different from the NoWeMic context for which they had been
designed (Serpell, 1972). In order to generate an informed account of the system of meanings that
define what constitutes intelligence in a rural African community, a cultural, quasi-ethnographic
study was initiated in the early 1970s (Serpell, 1977). Semi-structured interviews were conducted
with a purposive sample of adults in a cluster of Chewa villages in Eastern Zambia.

Rather than asking them to discuss terminology, we asked each adult to consider a hypothetical
critical incident in the village and to choose among a group of actual children the one to whom
they would assign a concrete relevant task. These scenarios included: a house catches fire and
there are only these children present with you; you are washing your clothes at the stream and you
see that the place where you usually spread them out to dry is muddy; you are doing some repair
work on the thatched roof of a house and you see the need for a makeshift hammer.

In answering the questions, respondents were asked to explain what it was about the child
selected that made him or her the most suitable. The term nzelu came up frequently in this
context as it does in almost any discussion of intelligence among Chewa people. Its semantic
load resembles in some important respects the English term intelligence and the French word
intelligence. But closer examination of how the term is used suggests that it may be closer in
meaning to the Luganda concept of obugezi (Uganda) (Wober, 1974), the Bemba concept of mano
(Zambia) (Kingsley 1985), the Baoule concept of ng’louele (Cote d’Ivoire) (Dasen et al 1985) and the
Djerma-Songhai concept of lakkal (Mali) (Bissiliat et al, 1967). In studies of each of these African
language groups, a distinction emerges between the notion of cognitive alacrity (ku-chenjela)
on the one hand and that of social responsibility (ku-tumikila) on the other, with a highly valued
personality trait defined as a combination of the two (Serpell, 1989). Over the years following
the initial study, we have held a wide range of conversations among cultural insiders of rural
Chewa society (Serpell, 1993, 1996). The overall picture that emerged of the indigenous Chewa
perspective on children’s intellectual and moral development can be summarized as follows:

• Nzelu includes both ku-chenjela (cognitive alacrity) and ku-tumikila (social responsibility)
• Ku-chenjela without ku-tumikila is dangerous
• Responsibility for child socialization is shared communally
• Play activities require no supervision and provide opportunities for practice and elaboration of
desirable skills and dispositions, some of which are desirable.

18
Box 3). Serpell’s studies in a rural Chewa
community of Zambia’s eastern province
‘led to the insight that nzelu [a term that
translates as intelligence] was construed
as an amalgam of cognitive alacrity and
social responsibility’ (Serpell, 2011a, 128).
Extrapolating from this, Serpell (1993,
Table 2.7) proposed a list of socialization
practices of rural Chewa society that are
designed to stimulate, guide or promote the
cognitive, moral and social development of
children towards culturally cherished goals.
Similarly, Barry and Zeitlin (2011) conclude
from their research with mothers of young
children in Senegalese villages that ‘a
curriculum of endogenous knowledge and
practices exist [s], which essentially relies
on learning through orders and observation.’
(p. 134) For instance, mothers massaged
their 1-2-month-old infants’ limbs, helped
their 9-month old infants to walk by holding
their hand, assigned their 15-18-month-
old toddlers increasingly complex tasks
and sent their 19-25-month-old toddlers
on increasingly challenging errands.
Ogunnaike and Houser (2003) describe the
use of errands as development-promoting
socialization activities for 2-year-olds
among low-income Yoruba families in rural,
semi-urban and urban Nigerian settings.
Another significant feature of the
developmental niche described by many
researchers on African early childhood is
the prominence of elaborate play activities,
unsupervised by adults. Marfo and Biersteker
(2008) note that while play is attributed an
important role in child development by
major Western psychological theories, this
is mainly focused on cognition, whereas
anthropological studies in Africa (e.g. Fortes,
1938; Reynolds, 1969; Schwartman, 1978;
Lancy, 1996) have emphasized that play also
serves as an interactive process of social
enculturation, structuring opportunities for
the rehearsal, critique and appropriation of
cultural practices. The cognitive and social
structure of indigenous African games has
been extensively documented (see Box 4).
Music and dance are notably rich dimensions
of most African cultures and children
participate in both from an early age.
Yet indigenous games are seldom deployed
as resources for enrichment in ECCE
programmes in Africa, despite the heavy
emphasis on play in the curricula imported
from Western pre-school orthodoxy. Okwany,
Ngutuku and Muhangi (2011) describe a
number of recent initiatives in Kenya and
Uganda where a systematic attempt was made
to ‘leverage indigenous knowledge for child
care’, by deploying local traditional songs,
proverbs, and food production, preparation
and preservation practices as resources for
the enrichment of children’s intellectual,
emotional and nutritional development,
rather than ‘downgrading’ them in favour
of those imported from the NoWeMics.
Unfortunately, as Hyde and Kabiru (2008, p.
82) note, such efforts are relatively rare, and
‘centre-based programmes in Africa tend to
be heavily influenced by Western culture and
sometimes are not relevant to the needs of
children and society’.
Barry and Zeitlin (2011, 134) suggest
that ‘it is possible to improve and enrich
... [endogenous] practices by adding the
knowledge and products of modern science’,
contending that ‘parents must learn how
to add frequent spoken language, verbal
explanations, and verbal discipline to the
old methods of physical demonstrations and
commands that prepare children for their
social and economic roles.’ They justify this
recommendation as follows: ‘The old, silent
ways tend to train children in obedience
and in learning by observing and imitating
correct behaviour without explanation. But
modern life, particularly in the cities, has
too many places where a child can wander
away from home and too much information
to make it safe to continue in this way’
(p. 134). However, these authors acknowledge
that their attempts to promote these new
practices through ‘Trials of Improved
Practices’ encountered some resistance:
‘Mothers of 0-2 month-olds told
researchers that the family ridiculed
them so much when they talked to
the newborn infant that they couldn’t
continue’ (p.132)
19
 Box 4: Indigenous African games and songs: a neglected fund of
knowledge for the enrichment of ECCE curricula

Mtonga (2012) compiled the texts of indigenous Chewa and Tumbuka children’s songs and games
observed in the 1980s in rural and urban areas of Zambia. His close analysis of specific examples
illustrates how these ‘games help children to think, intellectualize or discuss their own activities,
and explore the world around them’. Thus ‘seeking and guessing games, ... and riddle contests
involve reasoning and understanding the psychology of other participants’; and language games
demonstrate ‘playful and skilful manipulation of certain word-sounds in order to distort meaning,
create new concepts, or paint a satirical caricature...’ Mtonga further emphasised that in the
Chewa cultural tradition, ‘play and games also have a role in responsibility training and general
socialisation.... In several games ... children rehearsed their future roles as adults, and so showed
that they were at least intending to live up to the expectations people had of them.’ Moreover, the
social organization of children’s play emphasised inclusiveness: ‘Traditional play and games...
were thought to enable children to develop into healthy, strong adults. Even if they suffered from
some physical handicap or incapacitation, they were still encouraged to play and to take part in
games in the hope that they would at least regain or maintain their physical fitness.’

Croft (2002) observed extensive use of choral singing in her qualitative study of lower primary
school teaching in overcrowded rural schools in Malawi, but reported that it was used as a
management tool for exerting gentle discipline, commanding attention and invoking a sense of
community, rather than as a resource for teaching the content of the lesson. On the other hand, in
equally overcrowded rural schools in Uganda, Abiria (2011) describes how lower primary school
teachers build productive connections between the local Lugbara culture of the families in which
their young pupils are raised and the schools that seek to promote their initial acquisition of
basic literacy. A key factor supporting this mobilization of local ‘funds of knowledge’ (cf. Moll
and Greenberg, 1990) may have been the introduction in 2007 of a new ‘thematic curriculum’
emphasizing the use of home languages and cultural resources such as local stories and songs
as pedagogical tools to improve literacy instruction.

‘All but the most educated members of
the population were found to refuse to
teach their children the names of objects
outside of the context of commands even
if they understood the importance of
teaching vocabulary’ (p.133)
These observations raise a challenging topic
for future research. Does modern science
really show that the current practices
of middle-class, cosmopolitan Western
families are (a) superior in effectiveness
to the traditional practices of rural African
communities, and (b) transposable into
low-income African communities without
disturbing the prevailing sociocultural
system, threatening the psychological well-
being of parents and undermining their
confidence in their own parenting skills?
20
Relatively little research is available on
the emotional dimensions of African child
development. Kithakye and her colleagues
(2009, 2011) have explored the applicability
of contemporary Western theoretical
conceptualization and assessment to
the behaviour and experience of children
growing up in a low-income neighbourhood
of Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. These
researchers make a compelling case for
the relevance of emotional flexibility in the
patterning of behaviour among children
whose environment lies beyond the
NoWeMics. But further research is needed to
establish the receptiveness of local parents
and teachers to interventions grounded in
this theoretical perspective from Western
psychology (Eisenberg et al 2007).
Child-to-Child: an African educational
strategy
Despite robust efforts by African governments
over the past three decades to broaden
access to schooling, the structure of formal
educational provision in most countries
requires most of those who start out in Grade
1 to ‘drop out’ long before completion of the
full 12-year curriculum (Serpell, 1993). Thus
the process of formal education is perceived
by teachers, parents and pupils alike as one
in which students are challenged to climb up
a narrowing staircase.
While progression up the staircase may be
a source of pride for the minority who reach
the top, this conception of the significance of
schooling is in many respects problematic
for the community that hosts a local
primary or basic school (Serpell, 1999b).
The majority who set out on this upward
journey are doomed to be ‘squeezed out’
long before reaching the top, where there
is only room for a tiny minority. (In Zambia,
less than 1 per cent of any given cohort of
children enrolled in Grade 1 will make it into
a tertiary level institution.) Dropping out at
earlier stages is perceived as failure and the
individual’s return to the community a source
of disappointment. The experience of a few
years of schooling is not generally perceived
as adding value to the individual’s productive
capacity within the community. Thus the
purpose of schooling is widely understood
as the extractive recruitment of the best and
brightest individuals to climb up and out of
the community and enter a higher, powerful,
elite society. Any benefits to the community
are construed as flowing indirectly from
national level societal progress or from
trickle-down remittances. A number of
different ways of focusing education have
been proposed in search of alternatives to
the narrowing staircase model, including
apprenticeship, life-long learning, school
production units, health education and the
Child-to-Child (CtC) approach.
The CtC approach is designed to mobilize
children as agents of health education
(Pridmore and Stephens, 2000). It differs from
the narrowing staircase model by focusing
on the promotion of social responsibility
in pre-adolescent children, an educational
goal that resonates with the Chewa concept
of nzelu. The widespread African practice
of entrusting pre-adolescent children with
the care of younger siblings was a major
inspiration for the original proponents of
the CtC approach (Pridmore, 1996; Udell,
2001), which has been applied in more than
80 countries worldwide (CtC Trust, n.d.).
Box 5 presents a case study of integrative
curriculum development by a group of
teachers at a government primary school in
Mpika, a small town in Zambia’s Northern
Province using the CtC approach (Serpell,
2008). The key insight that pre-adolescent
children can take on responsibility as agents
of infant care and nurture, within the context
of primary health care and progressive
social change was re-appropriated by the
African teachers at Kabale Primary School in
Mpika as a way of incorporating indigenous
insights into the formal educational process
(Serpell, 2008). The striking long-term
benefits claimed by the graduates of Kabale
school’s CtC curriculum, including a growth
of egalitarian relations between the genders,
even within adult marriages (Serpell et al
21
 2011) lend credence to Nsamenang’s (2012, a view to integrating into their curricula ‘the
101) call for more attention to be paid to hands-on responsibility training component
CtC determinants of development in the of African family-based education.’
design of ECCE programmes in Africa, with

Box 5: Child-to-Child approach to education in an African

public school

A case study at Kabale Primary School in Zambia’s Northern Province (Serpell, 2008) observed a
comprehensive, integrative approach to involving pre-adolescent schoolchildren in the promotion
of public health at school and in their communities. One practice involved pairing schoolchildren
with selected children of pre-school age whose weight was monitored as an index of nutritional
status through regular visits to the local health centre. The growth charts, which served as a clinical
health record (Morley and Woodland, 1988) kept at home for these young children, were deployed
in school lessons as resources for learning about mathematics (cf. Gibbs and Mutunga, 1991)
and biology while reflective discussions on factors contributing to health led into social studies
and English. Children undertook group projects on topics in demography and sanitation and they
shared responsibilities for practical activities such as growing nutritious foods and bringing clean
water to school. Throughout these various activities, the theme of active participation was applied
both to exploratory problem-solving and to the cultivation of social responsibility (Mumba, 2000).
Practical and social skills acquired were demonstrated through role-play (Mwape and Serpell,
1996) and parents interviewed were generally positive about the programme’s promotion of
responsible participation in the nurturant care of younger children, which they recognized as an
indigenous tradition.

Analysis of official records revealed that students at Kabale School who were enrolled in CtC
classes scored higher on the purely academic national secondary school selection examination
than their peers at the same school enrolled in more conventional, non-CtC classes. The advantage
of being enrolled in a CtC class was much more pronounced for one of the two streams, suggesting
that individual differences between the two teachers’ approach to implementation also carried
weight. A follow-up study examined the sustainability of the students’ pro-social attitudes through
more advanced education at two highly selective national high schools and two less selective basic
schools. CtC students found less opportunities at the high schools than at basic schools to apply
the cooperative, pro-social skills and attitudes they had acquired at primary school (Adamson-
Holley, 1999).

Nevertheless, in a longer-term follow-up study, in-depth interviews with young adults found that
most of them recalled their experience with remarkable clarity and consistently testified that
it had promoted their personal agency, cooperative disposition and civic responsibility in early
adulthood (Serpell, Mumba and Chansa-Kabali, 2011).

22
Culture-sensitive ECCE programming for
rural African communities
In this section, we articulate some
implications of the research we have
reviewed for the design of interventions to
protect, support and promote the optimal
development of young African children.
The vast majority of these children are still
raised within extended families in rural
communities that depend on subsistence
agriculture and use one or more of the
continent’s indigenous languages for
everyday communication. This paper is
primarily addressed to the interests of those
children. We recognize that a significant and
growing minority of Africa’s children are
growing up in urban families, and that a large
proportion of those families are economically
deprived. But the particular configuration of
cultural factors relevant to their situation is
likely to differ in significant ways from those
of rural, subsistence villages.
Focus on local strengths as well as
challenges
Developmental assessment for young
children in Africa should be informed by
programmes of applied research including
local stakeholder consultations about
the goals of early childhood socialization
and education. Assessment as a guide to
action requires identification of a person’s
strengths as well as difficulties. The use
of exogenous tests often gives rise to
underestimates of a child’s capabilities.
Test modifications can yield dramatic
improvements in some African children’s
cognitive test performance. African primary
school teachers engaged in educational
innovation can make coherent assessments
on child behaviour they are trying to cultivate
through their teaching and their insights can
be used to sensitize other teachers to those
educational goals. Exploratory research and
development are needed to identify how
best to mobilise the intimate knowledge and
understanding of parents and caregivers
in the extended family, including pre-
adolescent children as first-hand assessors
of young children’s development.
Building on local strengths
Highly valued dimensions of child
development that are largely ignored by
Western tests and pre-school curricula
include nzelu, a socially responsible type of
intelligence, and cooperation. Cooperative
learning arrangements deserve special
attention in African ECCE programmes as
an entry-point for the cultivation of social
responsibility (Serpell, 2011b). Rather than
seeking to promote ‘homogenization of the
world around Euro-American developmental
values and educational models’ (Marfo,
2011), we recommend that priority be
given in ECCE curriculum development
and practitioner education to explaining
and celebrating the cognitive, social and
emotional power of African games, music
and dance. These are effective resources
for the stimulation of individual cognitive
development, for promoting cooperative
learning between children of different ages,
for building pride in cultural heritage and
for demonstrating to sceptical parents that
the ECCE agenda need not alienate young
African children from their indigenous
cultural roots.
23
 Community-based provision
Community-based provision promotes
community ownership and sustainability of
ECCE services. The African tradition of pre-
adolescent children caring and nurturing
younger siblings and neighbours is
informed by sound principles that share the
burden of care and promote the prosocial
development of school-age children. ECCE
programmes in rural African communities
should not rely on separating young
children from their pre-adolescent elder
siblings and peers and placing them under
the exclusive care of adults. The rights
of the older children to school education
need not be compromised by inviting their
participation. ECCE practitioners should be
oriented to the potential of the CtC approach
with free resource materials accessible in
sub-Saharan Africa from the Child-to-Child
Trust (nd).
Use of locally familiar languages
ECCE intervention programmes for
rural African communities should be
conceptualized as far as possible in the
local indigenous languages. Training of
paraprofessional personnel to implement
the programmes should be conducted,
as far as possible, in those languages,

Box 6: The role of indigenous languages in ECCE

Most African societies are multilingual and deploy different languages for various social purposes
(e.g. Underwood et al 2007). For everyday discourse about the behaviour of young children, most
African parents, especially in rural communities, rely on indigenous languages rather than the
exogenous languages that dominate the formal school curriculum (English, French, Portuguese)
and the Koranic curriculum of the madrassas (Arabic). In many cases the indigenous languages
encode in distinctive ways various key concepts and values (such as nzelu and ku-tumikila) that
inform the prevalent socialization practices of local families. These languages are also rich in
resources for the promotion of moral and intellectual development of young children, such as
stories, songs and riddles. Using these resources rather than those of a European language
serves to connect the practitioners of ECCE with their young charges’ home community in ways
that afford the construction of bridges of cross-cultural compatibility (Jordan, 1985).

If strategic interventions to protect, support and promote the optimal development of young
children in rural African communities are to become sustainable components of progressive
social change, they will need to be appropriated by the community as their own. The process of
participatory appropriation begins with trust. Parents and community leaders will more readily
incorporate new concepts and practices in their implicit theories of child-rearing if these are
recognizably expressed in the community’s familiar ‘language of hearth and home’ (Fishman,
1967).

A popular belief among many parents and teachers in Africa is that an early start on learning
the language of power will be highly beneficial for children of the current ECCE generation. Yet
systematic research has repeatedly demonstrated that academic competence is generally more
readily acquired by children who have first mastered basic literacy in the language of their home
(Cummins, 2000; Heugh, 2000). For the minority of high-income African families that use one of
the exogenous languages of power as a medium of communication with young children at home,
enrolment of the child in a private pre-school where s/he is immersed in the language of power
may be a viable strategy. But for the majority of African children, whose families cannot afford to
pay for private schooling, it is arguably dysfunctional to promote the use of the language of power
as a medium of instruction in ECCE settings.

24
and training of all ECCE personnel should
include special attention to communication
with and accountability to young children’s
families (see Box 6).

Inclusion of most vulnerable children

If anyone truly needs ECCE services in

Africa, it is those disadvantaged children
whose families are struggling to cope with
their biological impairments (resulting
in loss of vision, hearing or mobility,
intellectual disability, or other forms of
learning disability), or whose access to the
normal support afforded to young children
by family and community has been disrupted
(by war, disease, domestic violence, or some
other disaster). These are the children for
whom a felt need for intervention will be
most readily acknowledged by members of
the local community. ECCE programmes are
exceptionally well placed to include children
with intellectual or emotional needs.
Many activities in existing programmes
emphasize sharing, mutual respect and
cooperation and active inclusion of children
with special needs flows logically from those
principles. Public policy in African societies
should affirm and protect the rights of these
children to inclusion in ECCE, and positive
discrimination in favour of them should be
included in funding formulas, with targeted
subsidies from the public authorities
responsible for quality assurance, licensing
and oversight.

25
 Application: challenges, constraints and
strategies

Implementation of our recommendations • Bridging curricula for higher education

will face considerable economic, political
and institutional challenges. Many of these
arise from the endurance of Western cultural
hegemony in the publication and training
practices of the international community
of research and higher education, which is
sustained by the low level of endogenous
institutionalization of systematic research
in the African region. Plotting a way forward
will call for effective advocacy for evidence-
based decision-making and decision-
oriented research (Garcia, Pence and Evans
2008). Practical steps of particular value
include:
• Feasibility demonstration projects
incorporating and adapting indigenous
cultural resources in ECCE (e.g. Mwaura
and Marfo, 2011; Newman, 2007);
between orthodox western higher
educational practices and the demands
of an African sociocultural context
(cf. Serpell, 2007);
• Institutionalization of child development
research at African universities (cf. Pence
& Marfo, 2004);
• International partnerships in the design
and delivery of professional training
for ECCE providers that emphasise the
use of indigenous resources and the
cultivation of commitment by trainees to
work in local, poorly resourced settings
(e.g. ECDVU - see Vargas-Baron and
Joseph, 2011).

• Inclusion of cultural relevance among

the criteria applied by accreditation
bodies for approval of ECCE services,
institutions and training programmes
(cf. Mavimbela, 2001);

• Challenging western hegemony through

systematic study of cultural diversity;

• Integration of African cultural resources

into teaching resources for higher
education in Africa (e.g. Nsamenang and
Tchombe, 2011);

26
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Information on the series
UNESCO Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Working Papers Series offers
analysis and discussion on various themes and issues concerning ECCE. It aims to enrich
perspectives on ECCE and contribute to strengthening global knowledge base on ECCE.