Scaling inclusive ECCE and school readiness through sign language rich environments for deaf learners

For all children, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) offers a crucial opportunity to prepare for lifelong learning, making it a top priority across GPE partner countries. For children with disabilities, this period is especially important because it increases access to interventions which can help them reach their full potential. However, children with disabilities are often excluded from early learning opportunities. For those who have access, their needs are unmet due to several factors, including lack of special education skills among ECCE teachers. Deaf children face the most challenges to learning because of language barriers. These children are not exposed to bilingual opportunities that include sign language at home and schools, and teachers are not equipped to support their unique needs. Additionally, there are gaps in evidence-based innovations that prioritize sign language acquisition and instruction as foundational in the language-learning for deaf children.

This project seeks to address these gaps by strengthening the capacity of teachers, including deaf teachers, to provide learning in sign language rich environments, with the goal of increasing access to ECCE for deaf children. It also aims to generate knowledge and evidence on how to scale inclusive, equitable, quality ECCE programs, and to increase the capacity of ECCE and deaf education stakeholders to develop and use evidence in their policies and programs, all to ensure a smooth transition to primary school for deaf children in Kenya, Malawi, and Rwanda.