Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to assess the existing practices and challenges of children’s
learning assessment in Jimma town preschools. To achieve this objective, the research has been
designed in descriptive survey approaches. The participants of the study were preschool teachers
in Jimma town. The sample size and techniques used for this study were 150 teachers selected by
simple random sampling, 25 preschools selected by simple random sampling, and 9 principals
selected by purposive sampling techniques.The data was collected through questionnaires, semi structured interviews and classroom observations. For data entry, epi data was used then
exported to SPSS software for analysis data and analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean,
and standard deviation. The result of this study has shown that the most common assessment
methods used by preschool teachers to assess children’s are tests, homework, classwork, and
oral questions respectively. Concerning the extent of assessing the developmental aspect of
children’s study shows that the majority of preschool teachers always assess the developmental
aspect of fine motor skills, cognitive aspect, social competence, and growth motor skills
respectively. Again, the result of this study indicated that there was no early childhood care and
education (ECCE) professional teacher in the centers to assess children properly. The findings
of this study show that the majority of preschools have no early childhood curriculum, syllabus,
and teacher guidelines.
Regarding the challenges of hindering preschool teachers to assess children’s properly, the
findings show that the most series challenges to assessing children’s are; lack of early childhood
care and education (ECCE) professionals or expertise, lack of early childhood education
curriculum, workload on teachers, lack of instructional materials or teaching aids and large
class size.
