Early childhood centres not for dropouts

Accra, March 4, GNA - Proprietors of Early Childhood Centres have been urged to always endeavour to recruit instructors who have proven professional capabilities in childcare and development. Mr Boateng Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Early Childhood Studies at Madina, who made the call, said the increasing number of people being employed without requisite training was becoming a major concern.

Mr Mensah, who was speaking at the end of a 10-week course on childcare and development in Accra, said these days many school dropouts were being employed in the area.

Topics treated included, The Rights of the Child, Educational Child Development, Principles of Education, Child Psychology, Environmental Sanitation and Cleanliness.

Mr Mensah observed that very often some people had the erroneous impression that Early Childhood Centres were for people who were lazy, dropouts or those who just saw them as another job option.

"The early stages of a child's growth are not only critical for the child's future development but the entire society. "Serious efforts and resources must be devoted for this sector to ensure that the child is given a good start of education, care and development to adequately prepare him or her to have a good take off." Mr Mensah said if child development were not crucial for the advancement of society, the developed countries would not have made early childhood programmes courses of study to the Doctor of Philosophy level.

He advised proprietors of Early Childhood Centres not to start the development process of a child wrongly.

"Parents and communities must appreciate that child development is a collaborative effort and that the teacher, parents and community must work together to develop the child," he said.

Mr Mensah also stated that books on human development, especially child development, kept changing and thus called for managers of early childhood centres to access training programmes that would enable them to be abreast of such changes for the general good of children. According to him it was the desire of the Institute of Early Childhood Studies to provide training to as many young people as possible who would be readily available to be engaged by the institutions that deal with the development and growth of children.