PLAY-BASED LEARNING AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION IN OGUN-EAST, NIGERIA: A STRUCTURED NARRATIVE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Abstract

Early Childhood Education (ECE) is widely recognised as a foundational lever for achieving the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4.2, which commits states to universal access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education. This paper adopted a structured narrative review, reported in line with the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA) and an adapted PRISMA 2020 flow, to examine how play-based learning (PBL) may contribute to multiple SDGs in ECE settings, with Ogun-East Senatorial District, Nigeria, as the analytical site of application. Searches were conducted across ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, PubMed Central, African Journals Online (AJOL) and Google Scholar, supplemented by structured searching of the UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank institutional repositories. The initial search was conducted between 6 and 24 January 2025 and updated between 4 and 15 May 2026; the update accounts for the inclusion of sources published after the original search. Searches identified 81 records; after removal of 6 duplicates, 75 records were screened, 61 full texts were assessed, and 50 sources were retained. The retained corpus corresponds exactly to the reference list and comprises 26 peer-reviewed journal articles, 18 institutional and multilateral publications, 4 foundational theoretical texts and 2 methodological texts. Empirical sources were critically appraised using an adapted Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT, version 2018) and graded high, moderate or low confidence. The retained literature is synthesised into the Play-Based Learning and SDG Integration Model (PBL-SDGIM), a conceptual framework constructed through best-fit framework synthesis. The model maps four PBL outcome domains: cognitive-academic, socio-emotional, physical health and equity-inclusion onto SDG targets under Goals 3, 4, 5, 10 and 16, and is distinguished from existing frameworks by three features: it operates at the level of specific SDG targets rather than goals; it treats cultural congruence as an input condition rather than an adaptation layer; and it specifies moderators, boundary conditions and plausible null pathways. The paper argues that a shift from rote-centred to play centred pedagogy in Ogun-East public pre-primary provision is a defensible strategic priority for SDG attainment, identifies five structural barriers derived thematically from the corpus, and advances five propositions offered as testable claims rather than validated findings. Because no district-level empirical data were collected, the analysis is presented as a conceptual and agenda-setting contribution requiring primary validation.