Asian Journal of Sociological Research

Early childhood education is the foundation of basic education in Kenya. However, the low academic performance of early childhood teacher trainees in Kenya has raised concerns among the education stakeholders. This study examined the relationship between relationship between teacher trainers’ professionalism and performance of trainee teachers in Early Childhood Development Education Centres (ECDE). Constructivism Theory of learning as proposed by Jean Piaget was used to guide the study. The concurrent triangulation design within mixed approach was adopted. Target population was 23 registered pre-primary teacher training colleges in Kisumu County comprising of 1150 teacher trainees. Simple random, saturated, and purposive sampling was used to obtain a sample size of 345 teacher trainees, 7 pre-primary coordinators’, and 23 college programs officers respectively, making a sample size of 375. Questionnaire was used to collect data from teacher trainees, while interview schedule was used to collect qualitative data from programme officers and sub county pre-primary coordinators. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze quantitative data while thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. The results of the study indicated that most of the teacher trainers of preschool trainee teachers are competent enough to carry out their duties, and that they are also competent in pedagogical skills. The study recommends that the Kenyan Ministry of Education should uphold teacher professionalism through organizing various in-service trainings, career workshops and symposiums to increase competency of teachers and their professionalism for good academic outcome.