Exploring early childhood education teacher competencies for sustainable development

In recent years, growing knowledge of the critical importance of childhood development for lifelong learning and growth has led to increased calls for professionalism of early childhood educators including higher standards for training and education. As part of this renewed attention to professional development, professionals in the field should develop the national competence framework for early childhood care and education, with the goal of assuring that all educators of young children have the necessary knowledge and skills to meet children’s development needs. Suitable to their vital role in the venture of education, teachers at all levels require effective and sufficient education to be able to adequately carry out their roles and responsibilities. There are disparities of ECDE teacher education levels of education from early childhood to tertiary education. ECDE Teacher education is a whole range of activities that constitute preparation for and improvement of the teaching profession. This encompasses both pre-service and in-service teacher education course. These forms of teacher education courses involve the study of professional disciplines, teaching subjects and general knowledge subjects. The need and demand for more teachers has resulted in re-engineering and expansion of teacher education programmes for all levels of education with the realization that teachers are crucial personnel whose contribution activates the optimal functioning of the social, economic and political feature of a country. This authenticate the fact that ECDE teacher education is an important driver for sustainable development since literally every knowledgeable and skilled individual in micro and macro productive activity has been shaped in some ways by the contribution of an EDCE teacher. This paper, surveys the various teacher competencies ECDE teacher should have and 5 levels of ECDE teacher education in Kenya in an effort to assess and propose instrumental adjustments to sharpen their impact on sustainable development.