NCCE urges parents to prioritize welfare of children

The National Commission for Civic Education [NCCE] has advised parents to give proper training and welfare services to their children instead of shifting that role to teachers.

They should serve as role models for their children and show them love and care to enable them to confide in them instead of discussing their problems with their peers, who might advise them wrongly.

Additionally, they must sacrifice and invest in the needs and education of their children and pointed out that, a good family should be the one in which people shared, protected and encouraged each other either in time of joy or sorrow.

Mrs Judith Adomako-Ofosua, the Mfantseman Municipal Director of the Commission, gave the advice at a ceremony to mark the International Day Against Child Labour at Briwa in the Central Region.

The NCCE Director encouraged mothers to make their home havens for their families and endeavour to respect, submit and be the immediate advisors to their children.

They must regularly visit the schools to find out not only how their wards were performing in the classroom, but their conduct to help groom them well.

Parents should support teachers to instil discipline – good character training of the young ones and interact with teachers to enable them to ascertain problems of their children at school.

Mrs Adomako-Ofosua reminded them to attend meetings called by the PTAs to deliberate on issues pertaining to the welfare and the future of their children.

On the child labour menace, she noted that the Commission had intensified sensitization programmes to bring the practice to its barest minimum.

Mrs Adomako-Ofosua admonished parents to end the use of children for hazardous activities that could have physical, psychological and emotional traumas on their health.

They should monitor the changing attitude of their children and disengage from abuses that could ruin their future goals.

Some parents admitted in an interview with the Ghana News Agency that the menace was difficult to eradicate because most children on vacation and after school helped their parents on the farm or at sea.

They praised the organizers for throwing their searchlight on the Region where the phenomena of child labour and trafficking was most prevalent.

According to them, many parents in the rural part of the Region, preferred to take their children to fishing or farming, instead of enrolling them in school.

They therefore encouraged the NCCE and partners to scale up education to enlighten such children on their rights under the circumstances.