Education must start from nurseries- Participants

Participants at a three-day orientation workshop at the Upper Manya-Krobo District are calling for state sponsorship of education to start from the nursery level instead of the current one which starts from kindergarten, to ensure that children get good academic foundation to excel.

The participants were of the view that such a policy would ensure that government provided nurseries and teachers at all public schools, especially in the rural communities where parents could not afford to send their children to private nurseries.

The orientation workshop was organised by the Eastern Regional Office of the Department of Children under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, for 400 selected teachers from eight circuits in the district on Early Childhood Care Development (ECCD) policy.

Currently, Ghana’s education policy enjoins every child to start school at four or five years at the kindergarten for two years, before enrolling at the basic school level; yet many children, especially in the urban areas, start school as early as two years from the nursery

In the view of some of the participants, children who attended nurseries before the kindergarten performed better than those who started from the kindergarten and also, most children in the rural areas do not start school early.

According to the participants, unlike the urban areas where working mothers could afford to pay the cost of private nurseries for their wards, mothers in the rural areas could not afford to pay for private nurseries for their wards and, therefore, keep them at home until such age that they could be enrolled in the public schools.

The forum offered the department and other stakeholders including teachers and some parents, the platform to advocate for the promotion of the rights of children.

Mr Anthony Dontoh, the Regional Director of the Department of Children told Ghana News Agency that the orientation would equip the teachers and other stakeholders the ECCD policy to complement the efforts of the department in the promotion of children’s welfare in the various communities.