Developing a School Readiness Assessment Tool for Nigerian Early Childhood Education Settings

The absence of a validated, culturally adapted school readiness assessment tool for Nigerian ECD settings forces practitioners to use foreign instruments of questionable validity, and developing a fit-for-purpose tool represents an important professional contribution to the field. This study developed and piloted a School Readiness Assessment Tool for Nigerian Early Childhood Education settings, with field testing conducted across government and private ECD centres in Abuja FCT, Oyo State, and Enugu State. A professional tool development methodology was applied, drawing on a review of 12 existing school readiness frameworks, structured consultations with 25 ECD practitioners and 10 educational assessment specialists, and iterative tool development through expert panels. The tool developed assesses readiness across five domains aligned with the national ECCE curriculum: language and communication, pre-literacy skills, pre-numeracy skills, social-emotional readiness, and physical development. It uses observational and task-based assessment formats accessible to ECD teachers without specialist assessment training. Pilot testing with 300 children confirmed adequate reliability (Cronbach's alpha above 0.79 for all domains) and content validity ratings above 85 percent by expert raters. Teacher ease-of-use ratings were high. Expert review by 12 assessment and ECD specialists confirmed the tool's technical adequacy. Recommendations include national standardisation with a larger normative sample, NUC adoption for ECD programme evaluation, and UBEC integration of the tool into universal ECDE enrolment assessment protocols.

Keywords: school readiness assessment, Nigerian ECD settings, tool development, assessment validity, early childhood