Rethinking Early Childhood Physical Education in Ghana: Restructuring Policy and Curriculum for Alignment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjess.v6i5.568Keywords:
Curriculum Alignment, Early Childhood Education, Physical Education, Play Schemas, Loose PartsAbstract
This paper examined Ghana’s standards-based kindergarten (KG) curriculum, then presented and discussed sample early childhood physical education content and instructional methods. The KG curriculum aims to support children's holistic development. However, it explicitly excluded both the physical and psychomotor domains, whether as strands or sub-strands. Addressing this gap is crucial to achieve holistic development through curriculum reform. Additionally, this paper discussed selected perceptual-motor abilities and neuromuscular attributes and their contributions to learning and young children's holistic development. Given that Ghana is an emerging country and the KG curriculum uses a play-based, integrated thematic approach, early childhood movement experiences are necessary for the country’s education system to produce a physically literate citizenry.
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