Abstract:
Creating child friendly schools is an international movement that encourages schools to operate in
the best interests of children. Child friendly schools not only help children realize their right to a
basic education but also provide quality educational experiences. A child friendly school is childfocused and child-centered. These schools promote inclusion and help children learn what they
need to learn, while teaching them how to learn. They ensure a healthy and safe learning
environment, eliminate gender stereotypes, and encourage child participation. Ministries of
education, development agencies, and schools should all understand and support the basic
characteristics of a child friendly school and work toward incorporating these characteristics into
all child learning environments. This study aims at identifying the child-friendly learning
environment at Pre-school by exploring the teachers’ roles and perspectives towards it. For this,
five teachers were purposively selected from the five Pre-schools schools in Batticaloa Manmunai
north. Their perspectives about the childfriendly learning environment were recorded through
face-to-face semi-structured interview. The collected data were analyzed by using qualitative
approach. The study found that there is vast gap between outsiders’ view and the reality of schools
regarding child-friendly learner centered learning environment. In such situation, the teacher’s role
seems to be dynamic and creative to create child friendly learning environment at school.
