Zambezia (1994), XXI (i).RESEARCH REPORTZIMBABWEAN TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OFTHE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMCHIPO MARIRADepartment of Teacher Education, University of ZimbabweAbstractThis study reports the findings of a research project on Zimbabwean infant'teachers' perceptions of the curriculum for children in grades one, two andthree. There was general consensus among infant teachers on what theybelieved to be the three most important subjects on their curriculum. Anotable result of the study was that the subjects that children enjoy learningmost are regarded as being the least important by their teachers. Thesesubjects are allocated less teaching time than certain other subjects andteachers rarely keep records of children's progress in them. The study concludesthat Zimbabwean infant teachers have been poorly socialized into the natureand purpose of children's curricula, and recommends that teacher trainingprogrammes for infant teachers be revised accordingly in this aspect.ISSUES ABOUT THE nature of the curriculum in general, and what childrenshould learn in particular, are constantly being debated. The differentinterpretations of what is important in the education of young children arereflected in the proliferation of curricular philosophies and designs whichhave received widespread analysis and criticism. Barrow2 discusses someof these approaches; among them Hirst's 'Forms of knowledge', Bantock'sand Peter's concept of the 'intrinsic value', Rousseau's and Neil's views onthe 'Child-centered curriculum', and Goodman's 'Deschooling'.The importance of the role of teachers as curriculum implementershas been succinctly described by Girroux3 when he states that nocurriculum is teacher-proof. He concludes that teachers' perceptions of1 Infant is a term used in the Zimbabwean primary school system to refer to children ingrades one, two and three Š an age range of six to eight years. Infant teachers are teacherswho are trained to teach in grades one to three. However, because of changing teachereducation programmes over the years, the term can also refer to any teacher teaching Ingrades one to three.2 R. Barrow, Common Sense and the Curriculum (London, Allen and Unwin, 1976), 38-63.3 H. A. Girroux, Teachers as Intellectuals (Westport CT, Bergin and Garvey, 1988).8182THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMthe curriculum are crucial to curriculum implementation because thoseperceptions guide the procedures and practices of teachers in theirclassrooms.Studies on the nature of the infant curriculum and of teachers'perceptions and implementation thereof have been undertaken in a numberof countries. The 'Plowden report'4 conducted an extensive study of theBritish infant school including, inter alia, the nature and content of thecurriculum and how it was implemented. The study reported that youngchildren benefit more from an undifferentiated curriculum and insisted onthe integration of subjects because knowledge does not fall neatly intoseparate compartments. In addition to this, the manner in which youngchildren learn does not fit into subject categories. Although the Education5-9 report5 lent its support to both subject-segregated and integratedcurricula for young children, it also reported that a substantial amount ofthe work teachers carried out could not be clearly categorized underdiscrete subject headings, and that teachers did attempt to link variousareas of learning, where possible.Another area under investigation has been the allocation of time toand the status of subjects on the infant curriculum. Goodlad6 reportedthat most time was spent in teaching Language and Mathematics, and thatthe other subjects on the curriculum were allocated less time and statusby the teachers themselves. Goodlad also found that more resources werechannelled into those subjects that were allocated the most teaching timeon the timetable.Teachers' perceptions of the status and importance of a subject seemto affect the quality of their teaching of that subject.The Education 5-9 report found that teachers of the early gradestended not to view Social Studies as an important subject, and this wasreflected in the fact that tests were not set in the subject, and there wereinconsistencies between the goals of Social Studies and what the teachersactually taught. Of particular note, however, was the status of PhysicalEducation which was not even included on the curriculum in some primaryschool7 programmes. Physical Education, as a subject, did not have work-books or reading materials and no tests were set in the subject. There wasalso a notable difference between the ideals of Physical Education and4 B. H. Plowden [Chairman], Children and their Primary Schools: A Report for the CentralAdvisory Council for Education (England) (London, HMSO, 1967).5 Education 5-9: An Illustrative Survey of 80 First Schools in England (London, HMSO,1982).6 J. I. Goodlad, A Place Called School (New York, McGraw Hill, 1984).7 Infant grades refers to grade one to three, Junior grades refers to grades one to seven(all grades inclusive).C. MARIRA 83how it was taught in schools. Instead of Physical Education per se therewas an emphasis on learning and playing competitive sports instead of aconcern for the development of motor skills and spacial awareness.In four studies reviewed by Alexander8 it was noted that investigationscarried out on primary school curricula seem to indicate that teachersconsistently concur on the importance of Mathematics and Language asthese two subjects feature on every list provided in the survey. Thereseems to be less consensus on the importance of the Creative Arts whichare sometimes integrated into the curriculum and sometimes treated as aseparate subject.Questions of what should make up the core curriculum of the infantgrades have also been central to the general discussion of curriculumdesign for young children. However, with the increasing amount ofknowledge demanded by our education system, infant pupils are beinginundated with more information to assimilate as their teachers considerit essential to provide an educational base for each of the subjects theirpupils will study in the future. For this reason, in spite of the increasingtrend of differentiating the infant curriculum from the junior schoolcurriculum, early grades have, therefore, ended up with the same range ofsubjects as the junior grades, making it difficult to distinguish between thecore curriculum of the infant school and the compulsory curriculum of thejunior grades.Developing countries appear to follow the curriculum trends ofdeveloped countries. One can only assume that among the reasons forthis is their lack of resources to implement studies that are indigenous innature. Lack of support for the few indigenous curricula devised in thepast, and sheer admiration for developed countries' curricula could alsobe possible reasons for this tendency.The Zimbabwe infant curriculum is subject-based and any integrationof content, skills and concepts is made through teachers' own initiatives.The subjects on the infant curriculum are identical to those in the juniorgrades, and the time-tabling and time-allocation are also the same in allgrades. The only difference between the infant and junior grades is,therefore, probably only in the degree of complexity and level ofcomprehension in the subject required at a given grade. It would also bereasonable to assume that the perceptions of infant teachers regardingthe aims and objectives of their curriculum are to some extent similar tothose of teachers of the junior grades.The purpose of my study is to examine infant teachers' perceptions ofthe Zimbabwean curriculum in order to serve as a basis for further research8 R. J. Alexander, Primary Teaching (London, Holt Rlnehart and Winston, 1984).84 THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMon the infant curriculum in Zimbabwe in particular, and infant curricula ingeneral. The study explores teachers' perceptions of the subjects on theZimbabwean curriculum as reflected in:a) their ranking of the subjects;b) their justification for their ranking;c) the amount of time that they believe should be allocated toteaching each subject;d) the amount of time they spend preparing for each subject; ande) the subjects for which they keep records on children's progress.Infant teachers' perceptions of school administrators' and parents'views of the Zimbabwean infant curriculum were also sought in an attemptto determine the potential influence of these perceptions on the teachers'stated priorities.METHODOLOGYEighty schools were randomly selected from three regions of Zimbabwe,yielding a total of two hundred infant classes. Questionnaires were sent tothe teachers of these classes in 1991 and 114 responses were returned Šrepresenting a fifty-seven per cent response. Sixty-eight per cent of therespondents stated that they were trained infant teachers while 32 percent were trained primary school teachers of junior classes. This meansthat all respondents had received formal training and were professionallyqualified. A profile of the respondents is given in Table I.The questionnaire was divided into five sections seeking the followinginformation:a) biographical professional data, including teaching experience,grade taught and professional qualifications;b) a personal priority ranking list of subjects on the infantcurriculum, justification for that ranking, and time that teachersbelieved should be allocated to teaching each subject;c) implementation procedures as reflected in teachers' identificationof the most demanding subjects in terms of preparation time,and the subjects for which children's progress records weremaintained;d) teachers' perceptions of parents' and school administrators'views of the status of each subject;e) subjects teachers enjoyed teaching, and their perceptions of thesubjects children seemed to enjoy learning.C. MARIRA 85Table IPROFILE OF RESPONDENTSDecade of Training Percentage1950-19601961-19701971-19801981-1991Grades TaughtOneTwoThreeNo responseLength of Teaching11 years or more6-10 years2-5 yearsLess than 2 years17232436Percentage3340261Percentage55161514All subjects currently on the infant curriculum were included in thesurvey, as well as Creative Play, which was still being taught in someschools even though it had officially been phased out of the curriculum.From the late 1970s through to the mid-1980s the Zimbabwean infantcurriculum had included Creative Play, because of the realization that theinfant child at school is being denied a natural characteristic: that of play.In the late 1980s, however, this subject was officially dropped from theformal curriculum in the hope that teachers would make play an integralinstructional strategy across the curriculum. In practice this has nothappened, so infants miss out on life-enriching activities and their totaldevelopment is thus impaired. In addition to this, teachers regard astrivial those subjects that have an inherent play component in them andthese are edged out of the day's activities.All completed questionnaires were collected and the overall rank foreach subject was obtained using a 10-point scale; the highest score being10 points and the lowest zero. The scores for each subject from each ofthe 114 questionnaires were computed to achieve the overall subjectranking. A correlation was then run to find relationships among thevariables.Table IICOMPOSITE SCORE MATRIX OF SUBJECT RANKINGSubjectsEnglishMathematicsVernacularArt and CraftReligious and MoralEducationSocial StudiesCreative PlayEnvironmentalScienceMusicPhysicalEducationHomeEconomicsTeachers'priorityranking10951079977700609600576554525443313Proposedtimeallocation946800899433393408368402350280276Mostdemandingsubject1057104789832011230261337357433Importantsubjectsto keeprecords1 1871030971314816053008Perceivedschooladministrators'priority ranking1 13710661002971761662420158948Perceivedparents'priorityranking1 1191124886693601852717804017Subjectsteachersenjoyteaching95210508264191332221062721758361Subjectschildrenenjoyteaming41947339497997814737775952440mNIiI2XOC. MARIRA 87RESULTSTable II reflects relative consensus in teachers' ranking of the three mostimportant subjects, and what teachers perceive to be the status accordedby parents and school administrators to the subjects on the curriculum.The top three subjects (English, Mathematics and the Vernacular) should,according to the teachers, be allocated the most teaching time, althoughthey proposed more time for the Vernacular than for Mathematics. Asexpected, subjects that were given a low ranking such as Home Economics,Music, Physical Education and Creative Play, were allocated comparativelyless time. A correlation between the status of the subject and the amountof time teachers allocate to teaching it was thus established as 0,9609 (p <0,001).The reasons for ranking the top three subjects as they had donevaried (see Table III). However, the majority of these reasons (85 percent) were rooted in teachers' perceived utility of each subject. I groupthese reasons together as 'utilitarian' for the simple reason that eachconstitutes a means to some other end, rather than being an end in itself.In my opinion the main goal of infant education should be to facilitatethe total development of the child, including intellectual, emotional,Table IIIJUSTIFICATION FOR RANKING ENGLISH, THE VERNACULAR ANDMATHEMATICS AS THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECTS IN THECURRICULUMJustification No. ofresponsesThese subjects develop children's basicliteracy and numeracyThey lay a foundation for future study in the subjectThey are necessary in everyday lifeThey are necessary in the total development of the childChildren enjoy learning the subjectsThey are examinable at the end of the primary schoolNo responseOther reasons343028664423026255544288 THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMTable IVJUSTIFICATION FOR RANKING HOME ECONOMICS, PHYSICAL EDUCATIONAND MUSIC AS THE THREE LEAST IMPORTANT SUBJECTS IN THECURRICULUMJustificationThese subjects are integrated inthe top three subjectsThey are the least demanding for childrenThere is no need for formal learningThey are not core curriculum subjectsChildren can do without themThey are not importantThey are not examined in the primary schoolThey are very demanding for childrenOtherNon-responseNo. ofResponses18142620882198%16122317772187physical and social development. However, only five per cent of teacherslisted this as one justification when drawing up their ranking of the mostimportant subjects. Teachers generally regarded the other subjects onthe curriculum as unimportant, or thought that those subjects did notneed to be taught formally at school as children could acquire skills inthose disciplines informally in their daily life (Table IV).The findings indicate that teachers consistently keep progress recordsin the top three subjects as well as in Art and Craft, and that the lower thepriority of the subject, the less likely it is that progress records will bemaintained in that subject. From Table II it can be seen that none of therespondents keep records in Creative Play, Music and Physical Educationand that maintenance of records in subjects that have a low priority rankappears to be arbitrary. The correlation between subjects teachers rankas important and subjects in which teachers maintain records is 0,9488 (p< 0,001).C. MARIRA89Table VTEACHERS' RANKING AND THEIR PERCEPTION OF PARENTS' AND SCHOOLADMINISTRATORS" PRIORITY RANKINGRank1234567891011Teachers'priorityrankingEnglishMathematicsVernacularArt and CraftReligious andMoral EducationSocial StudiesCreative PlayEnvironmentalScienceMusicPhysicalEducationHome EconomicsPerceivedparents'priorityrankingMathematicsEnglishVernacularReligiousand MoralEducationSocial StudiesEnvironmentalScienceArt and CraftPhysicalEducationCreative PlayHome EconomicsMusicPerceivedschooladministrators'priority rankingEnglishMathematicsVernacularEnvironmentalScienceReligious and MoralEducationSocial StudiesArt and CraftPhysical EducationMusicCreative PlayHome EconomicsNote: This table was derived from the composite score matrix in Table II.Teachers believe that school administrators attach more importanceto English, Mathematics, and the Vernacular than they do to any of theother subjects; Music, Creative Play and Home Economics being consideredthe least important. Environmental Science, which teachers rate eighth, isranked fourth in their perceived school administrators' ranking order. Artand Craft is ranked fourth by the teachers but seventh in their perceivedschool administrators' ranking (see Table V). The correlation between the90 THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMteachers' ranking and their perception of school administrators' rankingof the three most important subjects is 0,9410 (p < 001).Parents are assumed to view Mathematics as the most importantsubject on the infant curriculum, and to place a certain degree of importanceon the moral and social development of their child. For this reason,teachers place Religious Education and Social Studies in the top half of theperceived parents' priority ranking. Likewise, as teachers do not thinkthat Art and Craft, Music, Creative Play, Home Economics and PhysicalEducation are considered to be important in the parents' priority ranking,these subjects receive a similar ranking to that ascribed to schooladministrators, as seen in Table V. Results of the survey reveal a correlationof 0,9375 (p < 0,001) between teachers' own opinions and their perceptionsof parents' views on the importance of the top three subjects; therelationship between the perceived parents' ranking and the perceivedschool administrators' ranking being correlated at 0,9857 (p < 0,001).From Table II it is evident that the three subjects which teachersenjoy teaching most are Mathematics, English and the Vernacular, in thatorder. It is interesting to note that although teachers acknowledge theimportance of these subjects, they believe parents and schooladministrators attach most value to them. Consequently, teachers allocatethe most preparation and teaching time to these subjects, which are alsothe only ones in which children's progress records are consistentlymaintained. The relationship between subjects that teachers most enjoyteaching and those that take most of their preparation time was establishedby a correlation of 0,9856 (p < 0,001).Teachers report that children appear to enjoy learning Art and Craft,Music and Physical Education most. All three subjects are ranked at thebottom of the parents' and school administrators' perceived priorityranking, in spite of the fact that the teachers themselves rank Art and Craftfourth. An insignificant negative correlation was established between thesubjects children appear to enjoy learning and the parents' perceivedranking. There was no correlation between the subjects that childrenenjoy learning and any of the other ratings, i.e., the teachers' priorityranking, subjects that demand most of the teachers' preparation time, thesubjects in which teachers maintain children's progress records, the schooladministrators' perceived priority ranking, parents' perceived priorityranking and subjects that teachers enjoy teaching. Teachers do not evenkeep records in three of the four subjects that they perceive children toenjoy most.The results of the study raise some interesting issues, the mostsignificant of which are as follows (see also Table V):C. MARIRA 91a) There is some similarity in the rank order of subjects on the infantcurriculum between teachers' own views, and their perceptions ofboth administrators' and parents' views. The most significant resultsshow unanimous agreement on those subjects considered to be thethree most important subjects, as well as the fact that PhysicalEducation, Creative Play, Music and Home Economics predominate inthe lowest positions in all rankings.b) Home Economics appears in either tenth or eleventh positions in allthe ranking lists, i.e., second from the bottom or bottom of the list.Reasons for the poor rating cannot be inferred from this study, sinceno reasons were requested for the ranking of individual subjects. Itmight, however, be relevant to note that Home Economics is thenewest subject on the infant curriculum, having been introduced in1990. The low rating of this particular subject might, therefore, be dueto the fact that teachers do not understand what is required of themin the teaching thereof.c) Those subjects that teachers know children enjoy learning (Art andCraft, Music, Physical Education, and Creative Play) receive a poorrating across the board, and are also viewed as demanding the leastof the teachers' lesson preparation time.d) Teachers seem to allocate more preparation and teaching time to,and maintain children's progress records in, subjects that they assumeare considered important by parents and school administrators.DISCUSSIONThe perceptions of teachers of the infant curriculum, as reflected in thisstudy, indirectly raise several questions about the infant teacher trainingprogramme in Zimbabwe.Firstly, in a system of education that purports to be child-centered,considering the interests of the child to be central to all learning strategies,the negative relationship between the teachers' ranking lists and thesubjects that children seem to enjoy learning is cause for concern. Childrenseem to be learning in environments, both at home and at school, that donot regard what they enjoy doing as important. At school children spendvery little time learning the subjects they enjoy most, and at home itwould be safe to assume parents pressurize children into studying thosesubjects they least enjoy because of the perceived importance of thesesubjects to future success. Thus, both learning environments are notserving the needs of the young child as well as they might.If we accept the fact that teachers and school administrators areprofessional people who know what is worthwhile and for this reasonconsider, coincidentally, those subjects that children enjoy learning as92 THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMless worthwhile activities than certain others, teachers should still ensurethat they adequately prepare for and maintain children's progress recordsin all subjects on the curriculum. Teachers have an obligation to supportand nurture all interests of the child as far as possible, especially in thosesubjects children enjoy. A system of education that claims to recognizethe interests of the child should also regard the development of that childas a process of realizing his or her potential. From the results of thissurvey, failure to nurture and encourage the natural interests and talentsof the child appears to be a serious omission on the part of the Zimbabweaninfant education system.Secondly, the reasons given by teachers for their ranking of the topthree subjects reflect a serious deficiency in the Zimbabwean infant teachertraining programme in that subjects are ranked as such on purely utilitariangrounds. This would suggest that teacher trainees are taught that themain emphasis of education in these formative years should be on academicachievement and not on promoting and encouraging natural curiosity andinterests. This attitude ignores what is widely accepted to be the majorgoal of education in the early years, namely, to encourage the totaldevelopment of the child. Accepting this as our guiding principle, theimportance of different subjects should be assessed in terms of 'maximumcontribution' to the total development of the child. In spite of this, onlyfive per cent of teachers made any reference to the subjects' contributionto the total development of the child, or to the fact that children enjoyedlearning particular subjects.Rousseau warns educators of young children against deciding on theimportance of subjects on the basis of utilitarianism when he says:What is to be thought... of that cruel education which sacrifices the present to anuncertain future, that burdens the child with all sorts of restrictions and begins bymaking him miserable, in order to prepare him for some far off happiness which hemay never enjoy?9The preoccupation of many teachers with the basic preparation ofchildren for future learning is, in my view, misplaced. Utilitarianconsiderations in infant curriculum design, although necessary, shouldnot overshadow the focus on the all-round development of the child.English, Mathematics and the Vernacular already dominate the curriculumat the expense of other learning experiences higher up the educationalladder. For this reason, the difference between teaching in the infantschool and at higher levels of education should be reflected in the focusJ. J. Rousseau, Emile (1911) trans, by B. Foxley (London, Dent, 1955), 423.C. MARIRA 93on the child rather than on the subject in the early years, the subject onlyserving as a vehicle for developing the child. Alexander refers to thisdifference as the 'Child not subject hypothesis'.10 In the infant classes, thefocus should be on the child, andThe Expressive Arts (Art and Craft, Music and Physical Education) should play animportant role in early education by virtue of their inherent capacity to enhance achild-centered approach and provide 'maximum contribution' to the total develop-ment of the child. Nevertheless, infant teachers still consider these subjects to bethe least important. The Expressive Arts formed an integral part of the earlyFroebelian kindergarten curriculum and were accorded pride of place because oftheir ability to develop the 'total child', particularly by encouraging self-expres-sion."Conversely, the mode of instruction in the top-ranked subjects tendsto be teacher-dominated because of the emphasis on imparting newconcepts, skills and knowledge. This means that no creativity is affordedthe individual child who becomes a mere receptacle for all the informationcoming from the teacher. In addition to this, children's progress recordstend to focus on cognitive achievement, to the exclusion of other areas ofdevelopment, because of the preoccupation with checking the child'sunderstanding of specific concepts in that subject.In other words, the Mathematics teacher records quantitative totalsand assesses the quality of the child's work in the subject utilizing standardsexternal to the child. In the Expressive Arts, however, such totals are notpossible because the criterion is based on the standards coming fromwithin the individual child. According to Spodeck12 the Expressive Artslend themselves to all-round development because the creativity and self-expression inherent in them are pervasive in all areas of development.Thirdly, the allocation of time on the infant curriculum should also bebased on the principle of 'maximum contribution' to the total developmentof the child. The Expressive Arts should be allocated at least as much timeas is devoted to the top three subjects. However, the actual amount oftime allocated to these subjects on the Zimbabwean infant curriculum inno way even vaguely affords the Expressive Arts this amount of time.In theory, each of the Expressive Arts is allocated a maximum of onehour in a twenty-hour week, while English, the Vernacular and Mathematicseach have a total of four-and-a-half hours per week. In practice, however,10 R. J. Alexander, Primary Teaching.11 B. Spodeck, Teaching in the Early Years (Englewood Cliffs NJ., Prentice Hall, 1985),206.12 Ibid., 205-8.94 THE ZIMBABWEAN INFANT CURRICULUMbecause of their low ranking by teachers, the one hour allocated is rarelyused for the Expressive Arts, and is often used instead for further work inLanguage and in Mathematics. This means that the child is totally deprivedof experience in the Expressive Arts, thus creating an imbalance in thechild's intellectual growth and development. Theories of child developmentemphasize that a deficiency in one area of development will create adeficiency in another.13 As Alexander found in his study, Physical Educationperiods often become supervised recess periods.14 Current educationalpractices cannot, therefore, be said to be focusing on the total developmentof the child.The argument developed so far suggests that the process of rankingcertain subjects as more important than others, and of deciding on theallocation of preparation and teaching time for individual subjects, shouldbe relative to the extent and quality of the contribution these subjectsmake to the overall development of the child.It is also my belief that the current 'misconceptions' regarding themost important subjects on the infant curriculum may be a result of thefact that the infant curriculum is subject-based. Apart from the suitabilityof an integrated curriculum for young children, as outlined by the 'Plowden'and Education 5-9 reports, an integrated curriculum might refocus theteachers' attention on the original goal of infant education.Integrated curricula do not emphasize the content of the subject forits own sake but act rather as a vehicle for the total development of thechild who then learns through active participation and 'discovery'. Thelearning experience is carefully orchestrated by the teacher to enable thechild to arrive at the appropriate conclusions, but the child takes a moreactive part in the entire process than he would were the teacher simplyproviding information. The discipline or theme to which the child isexposed right from the beginning serves as a means for nurturing thedevelopment of the child and not as an end in itself. However, teacherstend to view the content of the subject as an end in itself when thecurriculum is subject-segregated. This approach is more suitable at higherlevels of learning.My analysis of curriculum organization implies that the infantcurriculum should follow an integrated approach and that the purpose ofinfant teacher training programmes should be to broaden teachers' views13 See H. W. Maler, Three Theories of Child Development (New York, Harper and Row, 3rdedn., 1978), 254-5; P. H. Miller, Theories of Developmental Psychology (San Franscisco, Freeman,2nd edn., 1986), 440, 433-4; D. E. Papalia and W. S. Olds, Human Development (New York,McGraw Hill, 3rd edn., 1986), 7; S. S. Ashburn and C. S. Schuster, The Process of HumanDevelopment A Holistic Life-span Approach (Philadelphia, Uppincott, 3rd edn., 1992), 24, 39-44.14 R. J. Alexander, Primary Teaching.C. MARIRA 95of the role of infant education to focus on the total development of thechild, as opposed to concentrating merely on the cognitive developmentof the individual.While on one hand teachers do not appear to share the same views asthose they assume parents and school administrators hold regardingpriorities in the education of the infant school pupil, they are still powerfullyinfluenced by their perceptions of these views in their classroom practice.For example, teachers believe that Art and Craft is ranked as the leastimportant subject on the curriculum by parents and school administrators,and yet it appears in fourth position in the teachers' own rankings. CreativePlay is assumed to be ranked as ninth and tenth by parents and schooladministrators respectively, while it is seventh in the teachers' lists.Consequently, while teachers may be blamed for using Expressive Arts'time for the top three subjects, the reason for this could partly be attributedto the pressure to align with perceived parents' and school administrators'priorities.In conclusion, an education system that purports to be child-centredshould ensure that the needs and interests of the child are paramount,and that there is consistency between the goals and practice of the system.To date Zimbabwean teacher training programmes for infant educationhave focussed on a curriculum that is subject-oriented. It may be time toreform the curriculum in an attempt to reduce the current emphasis oncognitive skills and instead promote a greater emphasis on the all-rounddevelopment of the child. Teachers need to be made aware of the differenttypes of infant curricula, not only to provide them with an insight into theproliferation of educational theories and practices in force over the years,but also to broaden their perspective on the nature and purpose of theeducation of young children and thus furnish them with alternatives tocurriculum implementation.