An overview of preschool education in Lagos State, Nigeria, is particularized with findings from a survey of 156 teachers in 25 Nigerian nursery schools. In Nigeria, urbanization has been accompanied by rapid growth in the number of pre-primary institutions. The educational aims of such institutions include both cognitive and social-emotional developmental improvement, but in practice, cognitive activities based on rote memorization and repetition are emphasized to prepare children for the competition for first place in primary school classes. Classrooms, usually attached to primary schools, are filled with chairs and benches; children are required to remain in seats. The average age of children entering nursery school is 2.5 years, and the average caregiver/child ratio is 1 to 35. While older and more experienced teachers primarily viewed early childhood education programs as offshoots of the primary school, they also perceived early childhood education as an opportunity for developing socialization skills. Findings of follow-up interviews explain the apparent contradiction: If teachers seemed to favor a more open classroom emphasizing the development of social-emotional skills within a socialization environment, they did so only as a means for fostering cognitive skills such as spoken English or alphabet writing in exercise books. (RH)