Breaking Down Barriers to Creative Teaching: A Qualitative Study of Early Childhood Education Pedagogy in Ghana

There is ubiquitous promotion of creative pedagogy in early childhood education (ECE), yet implementation is fragile in most resource-constrained contexts. Ghana’s education policy, albeit fostering creative methods, appears universal, and institutional constraints undermine its practice. The study intended to scrutinise the obstacles and facilitators that shape teachers’ use of creative pedagogy in three selected schools running ECE in Mampong Municipality. With the use of a case study qualitative design, data for this study were amassed by conducting one-on-one interviews with 9 participants (teachers and head teachers). Findings from the reflective thematic analysis divulged four key themes: lack of teaching and learning resources, theory-practice gap, policy-practice contradictions, and weak leadership. This study exposes an Exam-Centric Creativity Paradox, where, while the policy requires creative pedagogy, teachers are under pressure to prepare learners for exams. Innovation Gate flux, where leadership persistently diverts conditions and dictates when to implement creative pedagogy, was also revealed. Simultaneously, catalysts that can help sustain creative pedagogy were suggested, and they include resource provision, providing practical training experience for equipped teachers, and building a supportive cultural environment. While the identified may collapse creative pedagogy, targeted reforms at the systemic, institutional, and classroom levels can enable teachers to daily embed creativity more meaningfully.