Facilitating the participation of children with disabilities in early childhood development centres in Malawi: developing a sustainable staff training programme

Soni, A., Lynch, P., McLinden, M., Mbukwa-Ngwira, J., Mankhwazi, M., Jolley, E., Virendrakumar, B., Bedford, J. and Gercama, I. (2020) Facilitating the participation of children with disabilities in early childhood development centres in Malawi: developing a sustainable staff training programme. Sustainability, 12(5), 2104. (doi: 10.3390/su12052104)

Abstract

This article explores the development of a sustainable training programme supporting the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood, education and care (ECEC) centres in Malawi. This programme is based on a review of literature of curriculum, pedagogy and teaching approaches in ECEC in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside a review of national policy documents. The training was designed to enable staff to value the inclusion of children with disabilities in ECEC centres, as well as suggesting practical ways to do so. We set out our response to the gap in training of ECEC staff through the development of a supplementary integrated training programme, which, whilst respectful of the curriculum, policy and practice of Malawi, challenged staff to consider ways of including children with disabilities (CWD) and their families. We suggest this is a pragmatic and sustainable model that could be applied to training in other ECEC settings across the region in sub-Saharan Africa. It concludes with guiding principles for training those working in ECEC with young children with disabilities in low-income countries.``

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: This research was funded by ESRC and DfID Raised Learning Outcomes Call, grant number ES/M005453/1.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Lynch, Dr Paul
• Authors: Soni, A., Lynch, P., McLinden, M., Mbukwa-Ngwira, J., Mankhwazi, M., Jolley, E., Virendrakumar, B., Bedford, J., and Gercama, I.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Education; College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Culture, Literacies, Inclusion & Pedagogy
• Journal Name: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• ISSN (Online): 2071-1050
• Published Online: 09 March 2020
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2020 by the authors
• First Published: First published in Sustainability 12(5):2104
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license