Creating high-quality early childhood education in Rwanda: teacher dispositions, child-centred play, and culturally relevant materials

Overcoming challenges to quality early education in developing nations, TEACH Rwanda, one high-performing education system, offers a model of childhood learning through sensitive teacher dispositions, child-centred play, and culturally relevant materials. This manuscript provides a unique window into the practices of a quality early childhood system in Rwanda and articulates how these high-quality approaches to early childhood education can be executed successfully in developing nations with limited resources. The guidelines for practice and illustrations from real classrooms are relevant for a range of educators around the world. One key to success is the programmes’ homegrown professional development approach featuring Rwandans teaching Rwandans, which builds capacity within the system. The professional development description encourages administrators and directors to establish such programmes which can successfully build capacity and sustainability within their schools. © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.