Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

home about the conference programme registration accommodation contact

Improving and supporting inclusive practices in
early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau

Prof. Gabriela Portugal* and Dr. Ana Paula Aveleira
Departamento de Ciências da Educação, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal
g abip@dce.ua.pt and anapaula.aveleira@sapo.pt

According to an experiential approach, the most economic and conclusive way to assess the quality of any educational setting is to focus on two dimensions: emotional well being and level of involvement experienced by children. Does this quality and inclusive perspective apply to an African country like Guinea-Bissau? With our African partners the following objectives have been defined:

Development of curriculum guidelines for pre-school education in Guinea-Bissau and a corresponding implementation strategy based on a process oriented approach (experiential approach);

Constitution of a local supervision team to monitor and support the implementation process

Evaluation of the impact or effects of the program in the field, at different levels: children’s emotional well being and involvement levels; supervisor and educators style; curriculum and developmental areas worked with children.

The project is still ongoing   but we can already share some reflections and data concerning this challenging work: helping Guinea-Bissau teachers to focus on curriculum guidelines and process variables, and choosing a possible entrance to influence the level of well being and involvement of all children; supporting the reflection on these initiatives and helping teachers to see and enjoy their success, including the team dimension in the strategy and taking into account the culture of the kindergarten.

* Departamento de Ciências da Educação, Universidade de Aveiro
  3810-193 Aveiro Portugal
  Email: gabip@dce.ua.pt
  Tel: 00 351 234 370 353 / : 00 351 234 370 625

Improving and supporting inclusive practices in early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau

1. Introduction

Early childhood education may have an important role on children’s lives, considering different aspects: education, health, nutrition and general protection. In Guinea-Bissau, a multicultural and multiethnic country, early childhood education is still underdeveloped. In spite of several efforts, a sustainable politics for childhood hasn’t yet been defined and the vision of preschool education remains especially urban and very selective.

According to data from the Ministry of Education and the World Bank, in 1999, in a universe of 306.607 children under 6 years of age, only 4.159 children (3-6 years old) attended pre-school education (2,3%).

Human resources for early childhood education are very limited and only a few have some minimal pedagogical qualifications.

Nowadays, it is supposed that the percentage of children attending preschool facilities has risen to 6,5%, considering community movements to support children. Those children acquire in general a better knowledge of the Portuguese language, a fact that represents an important advantage for future school success, considering that Portuguese is the official language.

The significant increase of childhood centres has not been accompanied by quality improvement in services. There are no educational principles, curriculum guidelines, quality spaces, equipments and pedagogical materials, training and supervision. This situation gives place to a great diversity and multiplicity of interventions, most of them inadequate, being frustration, deception and sadness the predominant feelings in the educational community.

2. Confrontation with the reality of early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau

Among the objectives of the Foundation for Education and Development in Guinea-Bissau, we can distinguish “improvement of quality education” and “qualification of human resources for early childhood education”. In the context of a protocol between this Foundation and the University of Aveiro in April 2003, we went for the first time to Guinea-Bissau to establish contacts with the local reality, to gain conscience in loco about the main questions and difficulties and the existing resources or “forces”.

We found open-minded professionals, nice and warm when contacting the visitors, interested in facing with new ideas and discussing doubts in improving and innovating their educational practices. When interacting with children, they seem to be attentive, calm and nice, trying to understand their needs and difficulties. In some contexts, the adult-children ratio is very adequate, considering the age and number of children.

Families value early childhood education, especially considering its importance to develop Portuguese language understanding and fluency, an important basis to prevent failure in primary school.

The exhibition and valuing of children’s work (drawings) are significant and there’s a strong concern about courtesy education, knowledge and respect for social rules. But the most valued activity seems to be preparing children for writing and reading.

In some kindergartens we found some weekly or monthly planning, by classroom or institution, and some practice in professional meetings to plan and evaluate activities. In spite of this, a lot of practices and routines in kindergartens are installed by habits, people not reflecting or questioning their maintenance and having no arguments for this state of affairs.

There’s a predominance of activities towards the whole group, appealing especially to reproduction, chorus repetition and homogenization of expressions. We could not find stimulus for children’s initiative, neither in choosing activities, discussing ideas, solving problems or dealing with interpersonal conflicts. The degree of passiveness and “waiting” attitudes in kindergartens is very high. Available activities are reduced and academic or scholar activities (copying written characters) are overemphasized. Tasks are not challenging enough: they are too easy or too repetitive or there are not enough tasks to be done. Some children just “do the job”, while others are only watching. Group activities are in fact tasks to be done individually. Boring moments for children are common. Free initiative and play, discovery and expression activities are not valued. Apparently African culture is underestimated (stories, songs, materials, images for decoration are imported from other cultures) but an exception is made to dance and African rhythms. Children’s levels of well being and involvement are generally low.

A serious problem has to do with communication difficulties in the Portuguese language in the case of children and of many professionals. This situation makes language and cognitive development especially difficult. This aspect is particularly important considering that the official language in school is Portuguese and that the basic structures of thought are precociously organised.

On the other hand, although some kindergartens have good infrastructures (buildings, rooms, play yards, gardens,…), the majority of them have very small rooms, with not enough lighting, too cluttered with tables and chairs, without space for freer movements, children sitting at the table for long periods, with evident low comfort and involvement.

Materials are scarce, not diversified, deteriorated and not accessible to children (some times materials remain packed, closed in lockers or placed on high shelves). In this scenario, in some cases it seems possible to diversify and enlarge educational spaces by using outdoor natural spaces and resources (play yard, vegetable-gardens, exploring natural materials and resources, field visits…). A positive note lies on the close and natural relationships that develop between children and different professionals in kindergartens (cooker, needle-women, farmers…) enlarging their experiences.

In this context, we developed the project Improving and supporting inclusive practices in early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau, in pursuit of a basic educational principle: to respond well to all children.

3. Defining a conceptual framework and main objectives

Responding well to all children implies considering living circumstances that characterize childrens lives and bringing an ecological dimension to educational practices (which as to do with the culture or sub-cultures of a community or family). This perspective demands attention, respect and acceptance towards diversity and other reference points, and curriculum individualization. This means permanent questioning on practices, critical thinking and an open mind.

When looking at common teaching practices, some evidences arise:

• An educational culture where an understanding of the other seems non existent – curriculum development conceived independently of children’s needs and interests (task-concerns perspective). There’s a great concern with activities offered and directed by adults. Free activities, routines, relationships and dialogues, challenges created by children, are not valued. On the contrary, what is conceived and proposed by teachers is overvalued.
• No critical reflection and no questioning practices (tendency to adjust, to adapt to the institutional culture);
• Low involvement in problem solving (free initiative is rarely attained).

In this context, what are the most important competences we want to develop? Briefly, the child-centred competence, which implies:

• The competence to recognize and understand diversity (culture, development, life experiences);
• The competence to grasp and apprehend children’s perspectives;
• The competence to articulate and integrate, in a collective space, a diversity of interests and needs;
• The competence to continuously (re)build their pedagogical knowledge, by reflecting and questioning practices, designing the foundations for change and innovation.

What can we do to promote the development of professionals who are able to perform this inclusive project, working towards the right of every child to a respectful educator?

Teacher education can not be restricted to learning facts, strategies, concepts, but to enlarge and embrace the exploration of a vast domain of knowledge and its critical analysis, considering real life experiences. Enriching and stimulating moments for practice and reflection, individually and in group, in a constructive and open way, non personalized, discussing positively and negatively perceived aspects, clarifying and communicating adequately with others, about what works, how it works, with what children… are fundamental. It allows for the exploration and active understanding of reality, highlighting theory, making practice sounder, more complex, which in turn will enrich theory.

According to an experiential approach, the most economic and conclusive way to assess the quality of any educational setting is to focus on two dimensions: emotional well being and level of involvement experienced by children. Like Peter Van Sanden and An Joly (2003) we want to support Guinea-Bissau teachers in improving quality of education in general, assuming that “good normal education constitutes inclusive education”. Well being and involvement as quality parameters tell us that children start having problems when the educational setting does not succeed in tuning into their specific needs.

As Laevers tells us (2003), “when we want to know how each of the children is doing in a setting, we first have to explore the degree in which children do feel at ease, act spontaneously, show vitality and self confidence. All this indicates that their emotional well-being is ok and that their needs… are satisfied… The second criterion is linked to the developmental process and urges the adult to set up a challenging environment favouring involvement”. Raising the levels of well being and involvement become references for practitioners who want to improve the quality of their work.

Does this quality and inclusive perspective apply to an African country like Guinea-Bissau? Assuming that these process references of quality are universal, although possibly expressed in culturally diverse forms, the following objectives have been defined with our African partners:

• Development of curriculum guidelines for pre-school education in Guinea-Bissau and a corresponding implementation strategy based on a process oriented approach (experiential approach);
• Constitution of a local supervision team to monitor and support the implementation process
• Evaluation of the impact or effects of the program in the field, at different levels: children’s emotional well-being and involvement levels; supervisor and educators style; curriculum and developmental areas worked with children.

4. Supporting the process of improving early childhood education in Guinea-Bissau, through supervision and reflective practice

The project initiated with basic training concerning curriculum guidelines (according to the educational objectives discussed and identified by Guinea-Bissau early childhood educators) and an experiential approach focussed on the enrichment of the setting, empathic communication and free initiative, as a means to raise the levels of well being and involvement. As follow up activities, in order to go deeper into the experiential concepts and instruments and to enlarge knowledge concerning team work and collaborative work with families and communities, supervision and other in service education activities took place. Responding to the interest of the participants in the project, teacher education activities concerning reading and writing in the early years were also offered.

Obviously, initiatives that may favour well being and involvement have to be locally conceived, considering interests, needs and local possibilities and the social and cultural reality.  

The introduction of experiential concepts and instruments need adaptation to the African context, in order to become accessible and valid to a more enlarged community of educators. In this process, the establishment of equal and collaborative relationships between all the participants seems to be crucial. Only in this way can each one express their own points of view, giving rise to the sharing and confrontation of ideas, improving concepts, instruments and practices and establishing consensus about objectives and strategies.

In the world of professional practice with young children, supervision provides regular opportunities for both less and more experienced professionals to reflect together about their professional situations. Just as children need support, stimulation, attention and respect in order to become confident and more competent, professionals need supportive relationships taking the form of supervision, in order to become empowered and more capable. Among the group of 35 early childhood educators with whom we started working we identified and selected 4 to perform the role of supervisors during our absence.

As Fenichel (1999) highlights, effective supervision includes some essential features: reflection, collaboration and regularity.

Reflection: reflecting on professional identity involves examining experienced feelings, values and personal theories; in total, continuing analysis of what one is observing and doing.

Collaboration: a collaborative supervision relationship, that is nurturing and rewarding, is a desirable part of any training or work environment (only a few want to travel alone through unknown or doubtful territory).

Regularity: obviously, the development of a supervision relationship with the characteristics described above needs regularity (time to reflect, time to collaborate and above all, time to establish a trusting relationship).

In the context of a supervisory relationship, we selected case studies and group discussions (Shulman, 1999), and self evaluation as the main strategies to support professional growth.

Case studies and group discussions

One can learn a lot from practice. Stories, critical incidents, cases, are important to narrow the space between theory and practice. In order to support supervisees, supervisors need to know their stories, their perspectives and realities. The discussion of cases in the context of supervision and group meetings permits the stimulation of collaborative analysis; the exploration of complex and messy problems for which explicit theories and simple answers do not exist; the generation and examination of different points of view; the development of problem solving skills; the development of collegiality and a shared understanding in a community of learners; the stimulation of collaborative reflection and strategic introspection of one’s own practice (self-evaluation).

Self-evaluation

One common characteristic of teachers and other social professionals is their difficulty in questioning their practice. Frequently problems are explained by referring to characteristics of children, families, culture, mentalities, school organisation, external programs, government, etc., not to the practitioners or their professional behaviours. Undoubtedly, they work the best they can and know. In spite of this, it is important to develop a culture of reflection and self-evaluation, of modesty and humility. Practitioners must realise the impacts of their actions and verbalisations on children and understand that if children are “difficult”, disturbing, not interested, the professional has to deal with that as his/her problem, permanently trying out new approaches and alternatives, respecting and trusting children. It is not an external problem, beyond his/her own control, a problem inherent to the child, family or community, having nothing to do with the professional. There is always something that can be done. Constantly, professionals have to question their performance, considering their characteristics, their style, etc.

The supervision team that accompanies and supports early childhood teachers ensures the continuous development of a reflective and evaluative process about the impact and meaning of the intervention for teachers and children. In this process some monitoring instruments have been developed in order to help teachers in their innovation process, systematizing data about involvement and well being of children, and curricular areas or competences worked upon.

5. The innovation process

Step by step, teachers intend to change from an adult and task centred model towards a child centred model… This is not an easy task. In a culture where discipline and obedience, and a strong respect for hierarchies are dominant values, the adoption of a model where improving quality demands attention, confidence and respect towards all the children takes a lot of time.

Some action points have been elected by the supervisors together with all the members of the team. They considered them as crucial to respond better to all the children:

• a re-organisation of the space in order to leave more space for different activities on offer simultaneously (this means taking away tables and chairs, or creating free play spaces, for instance);
• an attempt to conceive, build and bring more diverse and potentially interesting materials and activities to the classroom (considering economic difficulties, i.e. poverty, in some cases, this means more creativity and openness to the external spaces, families and community in order to identify their educational potential and benefit from them);
• an increase of child initiative and free exploration of materials (by setting up spaces and increasing moments where children can play and use their natural exploratory drive according to their own pace and interests);
• giving attention to children needing special attention, in particular children who do not reach satisfactory levels of well being and involvement or those who have special developmental needs (in some cases this represents the development of a supportive attitude, giving positive attention and consideration to different ways of stimulating and working with those children).

This way of looking from the child’s perspective, considering involvement and well being, has been recognised as a way of evaluating quality of the educational setting. This way of looking has been structured and supported by a child monitoring system focused on the two major indicators of quality of the educational process (well being and involvement) and competences worked on within the different activities of the program. It is a system that permits to answer the essential question of “how is each child doing?” and consider the actions teachers should take in order to improve secure emotional health and development, in the important developmental areas, for the whole group and for each of the children. Fulfilment of this monitoring system represents a big challenge for the teachers involved. Doubts and questions arise all the time. But they are persistent and gradually, positive results come to light, adults becoming more at ease with the instrument and recognizing its potential.

Teachers feel the form is very long and that it takes a lot of time to complete, but all elements are considered important. Teachers still need close support in order to use the monitoring system correctly. A number of terms in the form need more work and conceptual contextualization. To begin with, the teachers have difficulty understanding basic concepts like involvement and emotional well being. There is a tendency to see involvement as “doing what the teachers asks, finishing the tasks, performing tasks quickly and correctly”. They have difficulty realising that involvement is much more than this, that it is about the child’s exploratory drive, development and intense mental activity.   Within this reasoning, there is a clear tendency to give higher scores on involvement and well-being. On the other hand, teachers easily consider involvement as a capacity of children (the capacity to pay attention and to perform tasks correctly, for instance) and not as a result of the educational conditions on children behaviour. Also, teachers often consider a low score as a sign of their own failing and fear the bad impressions this can make on other people. Usually they blame the factors which cause the low scores as being out of control and outside the school setting: families, poverty, lack of material, no conditions, etc.

Teachers need extra support and guidance on the reconstruction of the child’s experience and how to transfer this perception to an instrument (often, teachers have difficulty understanding what to fill in in diverse sections, the meaning of sections and of concepts like competences, self-organisation, goals and action points).

Defining goals and targets for action, for the all group of children or specific interventions for individual children, seem to be a difficult task, the formulation of action points still remaining very general and some times lacking connection with identified aims. Yet, enlarging free initiative and increasing the materials on offer became a permanent point of attention for the teachers. But the most important effect of this program is that the teachers feel that they themselves are able to improve things in their own settings. Like in Nicaragua, this is a most valuable effect, since “they used to work with the feeling that they themselves were not able to change the situation and that they depended on the help of the others” (Van Sanden and Joly, 2003). Teachers feel empowered and more capable, expressing their feelings of pride and enthusiasm when talking about the evident gains concerning levels of well being and involvement of children, all this due to their efforts for work improvement.

6. Global evaluation and conclusions

Like Van Sanden and Joly (2003) say, we also think that “probably due to the difficult working and living conditions and the teacher’s limited pedagogical-didactical background, the learning and changing process is slow. It is never wise to introduce a theory to the teachers and send them back to their practice without some kind of monitoring or follow-up”. Because educators (we) do not remain for a long time working, supporting and supervising teachers in their intentions to innovate educational settings in Guinea-Bissau, we tried to assure, by means of a local supervision team, a certain continuity in the whole process. But these supervisors are not really much more experienced and acquainted with experiential ideas than their supervisees. In spite of these strong difficulties and very limited financial means, these early childhood teachers keep on with group meetings, trying to implement innovation and quality. With supervisors it appears important to insist on a performance where they play a role as partners of the teachers (supporting, helping, guiding, joining, stimulating, etc.) in order to achieve an open climate, where all participants feel more involved in decision making, team work and sharing of responsibilities.

Subsequently, in the daily classroom practice teachers are moving towards a more open organisation and a more respectful attitude concerning children’s natural exploratory impetus. But they are still missing some crucial skills and setting conditions to be successful with the experiential approach. One cannot expect the teachers to master the full meaning of experiential concepts at once.

In order to keep the knowledge and experiences developed in the project, a resource centre should be made available and, especially in a country where the local languages are very complex and diverse and collide with the official one, the presence of two Portuguese early childhood teachers, supporting local supervision and direct work with children, providing and modelling good linguistic experiences with children, seem to be no luxury.

Keeping the improvement of teachers’ observation and stimulation skills, considering well being and involvement, is a permanent battle. Adopting the child perspective as a work reference collides with a culture where adults know for decades how and what children should learn in an educational setting, being extremely worried about what the others would think if they see children playing or abandoning their chairs and tables, doing activities on the floor and with greater autonomy and pleasure. Work means effort, obedience, and socially recognised tasks performance. Work mixed with autonomy and pleasure is not something evident in this educational culture. The tendency is to bring the control attitude of adults towards the new activities. Adults know what is best for children and act as being capable of programming development. They still feel more comfortable when directing conventional daily routines with one or two moments of extended free play. Although the idea of enlarging free initiative has been set and established, it still needs to become more lucid and strengthened in the future, compatible with rules and setting organisation.

Enriching the setting with new areas and materials improves material conditions but the sensitive and stimulating role of the teacher remains crucial. This role is not yet mastered. They do not really see the value of free play and interpret it more as nice moments where children’s well-being is visible. Considering play as a valuable educational activity, offering learning opportunities in various developmental areas where adult intervention is important and a stimulating one in this process, is a challenge for the future teacher education and supervision sessions.

One year after the beginning of the program we can conclude (like Van Sanden and Joly, 2003) that the concept of well being and involvement clearly refer to a reality which also prevails in the Guinea-Bissau educational context: there are children who perform at a high or low level of involvement during activities and children who feel happy and secure or who have emotional difficulties being separate from the group… The frame of experiential concepts helps them draw an overall picture and understand what is going on in the group and at the individual level, and how different factors and actions have an impact on the class setting. This orientation allows for a broader perspective of inclusion and directs the attention to all children, with special attention for children who are at risk in the actual educational context.

Like in Nicaragua, education is a priority and people see it as a possibility for change. The initiatives taken by teachers indicate that these are often very modest but stimulating and inspiring new ones. After one year, we feel that the work and the initiatives taken by the team constitute a positive starting point to develop the existing engagement for change and improvement, assuming the job of responding well to ALL children as a priority.

References:

Fenichel , E. (ed.) (1999). Learning through supervision and mentorship to support the development of infants, toddlers and their families: a source book. Zero to three, National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. Washington, D.C.

Laevers, F. (2003). Experiential education - Making care and education more effective through well being and involvement. In Ferre Laevers and Ludo Heylen (eds.), Involvement of children and teacher style, Insights from an International Study on Experiential Education, Studia Paedagogica 35, Leuven: University Press (pp. 13-24)

Shulman, J. (1999). Teaching cases: new approaches to the pedagogy of teacher education. WestEd – improving education through research, development and service (Workshop, University of Aveiro, Dec.1999)

Van Sanden, P. and Joly, A. (2003). Well being and involvement as a guide in realizing good conditions for inclusive education in Nicaragua. In Ferre Laevers and Ludo Heylen (eds.), Involvement of children and teacher style, Insights from an International Study on Experiential Education, Studia Paedagogica 35, Leuven: University Press (pp. 143-172)

home . about the conference . programme . registration . accommodation . contact