Scholarly View on Montessori Nursery and Primary School Effectiveness in Nigeria
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Date
2023
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Publisher
Lead City University Ibadan
Abstract
Nursery and primary education is a weapon for acquiring skills, relevant knowledge and habit for
surviving in the changing world. For any stage in education to achieve its milestones, there must be
level of school effectiveness. This effectiveness relates to one of the efforts made by school to achieve
what it was really created for, and make changes toward student level of achievement. To achieve this
effectiveness, there is a new innovation called Montessori education where there must be a match
between the child's natural interests and the available activities to help children learn through their own
experience and at their own pace to achieve the nursery and primary milestones. While in Nigeria, there
seem to be numbers of Montessori schools even though very few of these Montessori schools
understand what the approach or method is really all about. This paper adopts a systematic approach to
assess the availability and adoption of Montessori Method of education in contemporary nursery and
primary schools in Nigeria and how it relates school effectiveness. The paper compares both the
conventional ways of teaching and Montessori methods of education which shows that unlike the
conventional method that believes in grading systems putting unnecessarily pressure on the children
while the Montessori method considers helping the child not just mentally but also physically and
emotionally with freedom of movement and choice at their own pace for effective learning. The
associated benefits and challenges of Montessori education were also identified, while it also suggests
the way forward. The Social Cognitive Theory and the Diffusion of Innovation Theory were used to
underpin the study.