ABSTRACT

The issue of assessment is critical to children’s development. The adoption of suitable assessment tools/strategies would aid the process of judgment and decision making on children’s developmental milestones and learning. Therefore, this study examined the assessment procedure adopted for the pre-primary school children in Nigeria and to determine their developmental appropriateness to children. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. One hundred and sixty-two public schools were purposively selected from two southwestern states in Nigeria based on the availability of pre-primary class(es). One instrument entitled ‘Assessment Procedure Checklists (APC)’ was used for data collection. The instrument has two sections with section A, focusing on the demographic variables of the number of early childhood education classes available, number of teachers, number of children and teachers’ qualification. Section B assessed the type(s) of the assessment tool(s)/strategies adopted, when and how the procedure was carried out. Data were analyzed using simple percentages. Results indicated that the assessment procedure for pre-primary children in public schools was not developmentally appropriate for the children as paper and pencil’s type is the prominent one. It is therefore recommended that teachers should be given training and retraining on assessment procedures that are developmentally appropriate and would help to make decisions on children.

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