Browsing by Author "Cosmas, Juhudi"

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    Accessibility of the quality early childhood care and education for the children with disabilities: practices and constraints
    (The University of Dodoma, 2014) Cosmas, Juhudi
    The rights to the quality ECCE services for all children have formally received international commitments and acknowledgments. It is evident that good-quality ECCE is important for all children‟s learning and development. For the young children with disabilities (CWDs), the quality ECCE enables early identification and intervention of impairments and for certain CWDs, it facilitates transition into mainstream schools. The current study investigated the accessibility of the ECCE for the CWDs, focusing on practices and constraints. This study was a qualitative inquiry underpinned by phenomenological design. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, observations and documentary reviews. The sample of 38 study participants was purposefully chosen and reflected a number of education stakeholders. The study established that the available ECCE services for the CWDs were ineffective due to the lack of identification and assessment practices; lack of nutrition and medical services; shortage of qualified personnel to handle the CWDs; insufficiency of potential teaching/learning materials; lack of professionals such as educational counselors and speech-language therapists to support young CWDs; lack of parental support; and inaccessible schools‟ environment. A few CWDs in the study area were enrolled in school. However, sustaining that vital education was not easy. Poverty, parents‟ ignorance and negative attitudes, unskilled and unqualified teachers, inappropriate instructional resources, inappropriate school environment and infrastructure, transport problems, inadequate funding, and lack of policy of ECCE for the CWDs created a very difficult learning environment. Lastly, education providers in ECCE for the CWDs lacked the capacity to handle the CWDs. Among the recommendations were on improvement and modification of ECCE for the CWDs. The study recommended similar studies on a large area for a wider understanding of the reality and practical–oriented solution search. The overall conclusion is that the current context of the ECCE for CWDs was more inhibitive than facilitative and that the future for the ECCE for the CWDs depended on the extent to which such context is improved.
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    Parents and community engagement in literacy skills learning
    (The University of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Cosmas, Juhudi
    Literacy skills constitute one of the most important life competences that schools teach. The issues of literacy and numeracy are themes of concern in Tanzania due to the low literacy levels observed among Tanzanian pupils. This paper focuses on parents’ and community engagement in literacy learning. Within the framework of qualitative research approach, the phenomenological design informed the study procedures. A sample of 12 teachers and eight (8) parents was purposively chosen using convenient and snowball strategies. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Accordingly, the content analysis approach was employed to analyse the views of teachers and parents on the practices of parents’ and community engagement in literacy learning and factors that strain parents and community engagement in literacy skills learning. The findings indicate that there were no practices of engaging parents and community in their children’s literacy skills learning. This implies that there were no parents and community engagement framework and strategies for enhancing literacy skill learning and acquisition among the children. The factors that strained parents and community in their children’s literacy skills learning were associated with inadequacy of finance, lack of support and supervision to pre-primary education programmes by the government; absence of parents and community engagement framework for enhancing literacy skills learning; the beliefs that learning happens in school and teaching is done only by teachers; and parents’ poverty and ignorance. The overall conclusion is that the literacy learning of children is a shared responsibility. Therefore, parents and community have a reciprocal responsibility to engage with the school to promote literacy skills learning. Parents and community engagement framework for enhancing literacy skills among the children is undeniable. The study recommends that a combination of actors (parents, community, government and non-governmental organisations) needs to intervene and play well their roles to establish strong parents and community engagement framework and strategies for enhancing literacy skills learning.