Entrenching the Children's Right to Play and Explore Through the Creation of Play Opportunities in Early Childhood Programmes

Abstract

The paper is a research report that investigated how play opportunities can be created for children in early childhood programmes located in disadvantaged neighbourhood and whose practices do not support the right of the child to play. The study was a quasi experimental research. Two nursery one classes from two nursery schools were used as sample schools. An observation rating scale was constructed using adaptations from Themers and Carlson (2007) observation rating scale for preschoolers. The treatment which lasted eight (8) weeks was done between the administration of the pretest and post test. The data was analyzed using t-test for independent samples. Results showed that the mean of the availability of play opportunities at the post test level was higher for the experimental group than the control group while there was no much difference at the pretest level. The result also showed significant difference between pretest and post scores of pupils on motivation and participation. It was therefore concluded that the creation of play opportunities have higher motivation in schooling for children with wide range of indoor and outdoor play and activities than children with limited play opportunities. It was recommended that teachers of nursery schools located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods should he trained on how to create play opportunities for pupils inside and outside the classroom and that play materials and facilities should be improvised from local resources.