Author's Name:	Tendai Chikutuma (PhD)
Subject Area:	Social Science and Humanities
Subject	Education
Section	Research Paper

Guidance, counselling, Early Childhood Development, education, programmes, preschools, caregivers

This article explores the quality of guidance and counselling in Harare primary schools to ECD children as perceived by the school heads, ECD teachers and school heads. The study is part of a larger study on assessing the quality of ECD programmes in Harare primary schools in Zimbabwe. A descriptive survey design, qualitative in nature based on three in-depth interview guides for ECD parents, school heads and ECD parents was undertaken with 30 participants from ten primary schools. Data was thematically analysed. The analysis included direct reports of the participants responses to in-depth interviews. The study revealed different views among school heads, teachers and parents on ECD guidance and counselling in Harare primary schools in Zimbabwe. The study revealed that ECD guidance and counselling was not fully done. It was also highlighted that the ECD teachers and school heads did not have guidance and counselling skills for ECD children. The study concluded that the quality of guidance and counselling to ECD children is compromised. The study recommends that ECD teachers be trained in guidance and counselling of ECD children.