Minister reiterates readiness to ensure quality early childhood education

Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Education, has revealed his readiness to put into action, educational policies and programmes that would ensure quality delivery of education.

Addressing a stakeholder engagement organised by Lively Minds, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), which specializes in ensuring that rural pre-school children develop the intellect they needed, he underscored the importance for stakeholders to prioritise early childhood education.

“The brain develops most rapidly in the first few years of life. At three years of age, a child’s brain is twice as active as an adult brain and the neuroplasticity provides the foundations for a child’s physical and mental health, their ability to learn, to respond and be resilient”.

“But this window of opportunity closes once a child reaches around seven years old. These early years are a precious period of immense opportunity and immense vulnerability,” he said.

Lauding the organisation for its simple but ingenious programme on Early Childhood Care and Education in the rural communities, Dr Opoku Prempeh pledged Government’s support to ensure that the programme became a success.

“I am delighted to announce that the Government of Ghana will be working with Lively Minds to scale the programme to 4000 rural communities in the rural northern areas,” Dr. Prempeh said.

Madam Alisson Naftalin, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Lively Minds, in a sideline interview with the Ghana News Agency, applauded Ghana for making a conscious effort to improving the KG, by introducing evidence-based teaching practices needed for the child.

She, however, called on stakeholders to give more attention to parents, since children spent more time with them than with their teachers as a way of improving early childhood education.

“Ghana is really ahead of so many countries in Africa. It has got an excellent system, has a full sight to invest in Kindergarten systems but kindergarten is only part of the solution because we know that about 70 per cent of a child’s life is spent at home and we believe the focus needs to be on what the children do at home whether they receive the necessary care and nutrition at home,” she said.

The CEO also urged parents to take a keen interest in their wards education, especially in the early years of their lives in order to equip them with a firm foundation to enable them to stay longer in school, do better and become productive adults.