Linking Early Childhood Education With Indigenous Education Using Gamification: The Case Of Maintaining Cultural Value And Identity

Abstract

Cultural values and identities remain the bench mark for national identity, cohesion, patriotism and harmonious co-existence in any society. The introduction of western education into west Africa created a weak bridge between the indigenous education and the western education which needs to be properly linked using curriculum harmonisation. This paper examines how far the curriculum of early childhood education in Nigeria link with indigenous education which is the child first point of learning. Four research questions guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey design with a population of 655 public primary schools that house early childhood centers spread across the 23 local government areas of Rivers State. A sample size of 164 head teachers in early childhood centers was drawn using stratified random sampling technique representing 25% of the population. Questionnaire which was validated was used as the instrument and the reliability yielded an index of 0.81. Mean and rank order scores were used to answer the research questions. The findings revealed among others, that methodologies that used gamification can be linked with early childhood education and indigenous education. These include storytelling, riddles, animal clowning, demonstration, stone counting, and local farm tools by the teachers. This implies that the teachers are aware of the ways gamification can be used to link early childhood education with indigenous education but do not use most of these methods probably it is not highlighted in their scheme of work. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that the western curriculum should be developed base on an indigenous knowledge of early childhood in teacher training institution curriculum for early childhood education.