Gender Responsive Pedagogy and Early Childhood Teacher Education: A Study of Pre-primary School Teachers in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Gender responsive pedagogy, sometimes referred to as gender sensitive or gender flexible pedagogy is a key area recognised in 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda. In this 21st Century, teachers continue to play a key role in the teaching and learning process, while being expected to transmit gendered values, knowledge and skills to learners in the most responsible and appropriate way/s. In addition, pre-primary teachers are charged with the responsibility of caring and rearing children in schools. This means that teacher’s ideas and beliefs whether gendered or not are more likely to impact on the pre-primary school children's lives differently. Since children in their formative years nurture values, attitudes, life skills and virtues given to them by teachers, it means that teachers with gendered knowledge are likely to shape children’s mindset in a positive way. The idea of integrating gender responsive pedagogy in teacher training curriculum is well stipulated in both national and international frameworks. In this paper the author will present and discuss findings of a study done among teachers in public pre-primary schools in Nairobi County. The aim of the current study was to examine the extent to which teachers are grounded on gender pedagogical discourses during their pre-service teacher training programmes. Findings reveal that although majority of pre-primary teachers are aware of gender issues, they seem to have limited knowledge on how to use gender responsive pedagogy. In this era of globalisation and with the introduction of Competency Based Curriculum in Kenya, there is a need to critically re-evaluate teacher’s in-service and pre-service training programmes in order to ascertain proper inclusion of gender related topics, courses or units, a way of facilitating achievement of gender equity and equality.