Don’t allow early childhood teachers to teach basic school pupils – OMEP

The Ghana chapter of the World Organization for Early Childhood Development and Education Programme (OMEP) is calling on government to put in place policy directives to restrict persons trained to teach in kindergarten and nursery from teaching at the basic level.

According to OMEP, it is misplaced for head teachers in the basic schools across the country to allow teachers who study early childhood education at the various colleges of education to handle primary or Junior High School pupils.

The World Organization for Early Childhood Development and Education Programme (OMEP) is a non-governmental organization which focuses on the upbringing of children between the ages of zero to eight years throughout the world.

Speaking at the launch of the 8th OMEP Africa Regional Conference in Accra, Secretary of OMEP, Palham Oyiye, said Ghana ought to have an educational framework to support all children who attend creches and nurseries.

He believes it is mandatory for all head teachers to send Early Childhood teachers to where their services are needed.

“Making sure that every child has a chance to do well in school, both in cognitive and non-cognitive skills is a crucial goal of education. I don’t understand why someone will train as early childhood teacher and you send that person to teach in the JHS. This is purely misplacement and I think we have to make sure the policy directive are followed or else our children may not get the needed education they are suppose to,” she bemoaned.

For her part, President of OMEP Ghana, Mrs. Nyamikeh Kyiamah, urged parents to be very particular about the education of their children especially early childhood ones.

“One can safely argue that, children’s success in school to a large extent determines their success in the early childhood and some of our parents do not think early childhood teachers need to be pay more because they think they do not deserve more pay. We all have to take a second look at it if we want the best for our children,” she advised.

The Africa Regional Conference will come off from the 19th to 21st of April, 2017 in Accra.