REPOSITIONING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN NIGERIA: THE CHILDREN’S THEATRE APPROACH

Education in the 21st century is a basic need. Interestingly many people perceive education as a right of both children and adults. As regards the issue of quality delivery, the foundation level of education is crucial anywhere in the world. In Nigeria, the educational system has witnessed a catalogue of changes in policies and programmes. Some of the changes have appeared to a number of people as desirable while one continues to wonder why some of the other changes were ever initiated. This has resulted in a series of policy somersaults and disruption of academic calendars at all levels of learning throughout the country. Worse hit by all these is the pre-primary level of education where there is no visible government involvement whether in supervision, inspection or funding. It is against this background the paper explores the potentiality of children’s theatre in repositioning early childhood education in Nigeria. In doing this, it deploys the analytical methodology to explain issues and raise some vital suggestions on how to make that level of education work for better quality delivery. The paper concludes that since children’s theatre is both recreational and educational, it should be better placed to reinforce all others aspects of preschool’s curriculum as well as make teaching and learning fun for both the teachers and pupils at the pre-primary education level in Nigeria.