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GOVERNMENT MUST PRIORITIZE INVESTMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION – MR. DONGHYUN LEE URGES



Story by, Solomon Kwadwo Asempa

The Country Director of Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Mr. Donghyun Lee has stated the need to make investment in the early childhood education to promote quality education for all.

He said quality early childhood education is more than just a preparatory phase for primary school, and it is the foundation upon which the future of our society is built.

Mr. Donghyun Lee made this during a national stakeholders forum on early childhood education on the theme “Quality Early Childhood Education for all Children in Ghana: The Time is Now”.

Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) is the donor of this project that works to ensure quality and inclusive childhood education services for all children.

According to him, the first few years of a child’s life are a period of rapid growth and development, during which the brain forms connections that lay the groundwork for lifelong learning, behaviour and good health.

Mr. Lee said research has shown that children who participate in high-quality early childhood education programs perform better academically, socially, and emotionally. 

They are more likely to succeed in school, graduate, and lead productive lives, he added.

He said despite the clear benefits, access to quality early childhood education remains uneven and many children, particularly those from the low-income families and marginalised communities, do not have access to the early learning opportunities they need.

The time to ensure we provide “Quality Early Childhood Education for All Children in Ghana is NOW and we must do it collectively”, he said.

He called on the government to prioritize funding for early childhood education, educators must be provided with the training, support and compensation they deserve and provide a long term professional development to ensure they are equipped with the latest knowledge and skills to foster young children’s growth.

He also charged parents and communities to show their involvement in their children’s early development.

Speaking at the forum, the Country Director of Children Believe, Mrs. Esenam Kavi De-Souza, revealed that over 60 percent of Ghana’s programme budget were directly invested in education focusing on early childhood education.

Ghana has made some significant strides in the area of Early Childhood Education (ECE), nonetheless, a number of challenges continue to bedevil the implementation of the ECE policy in Ghana.

According to her, weak accountability in education management across the various levels, thus national, regional, district, school, and community level, insufficient planning and management of issues related to teacher training, deployment, retention and attrition and inadequate budgetary allocation for service delivery and infrastructural provision and the mismatch between the parental expectation of how children learn and the play-based pedagogy of the curriculum, and many others were interferences confronted in the policy.

In order to take stock of progress, brainstorm on strategies to overcome challenges and aspirations for the future of early childhood education in Ghana, she urged the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to prioritize early childhood education in their annual plans and budget.

This, she said, is a heart-breaking to some Kingdergarten (KG) learners sit in, most of which pose severe risk to their safety.

She urged the Ghana Education Service to intensify efforts geared towards ensuring that teachers trained in Early Childhood Education (ECE) are posted to those classes and actually serve there.

Mrs. Esenam Kavi De Souza called on the concerted efforts of all ministries, stakeholders, departments, local government, researchers, private entities, educators, NGOs, alongside communities to work behind the work for advancing early childhood education development.

She therefore called on the government to pass the Legislative Instrument (LI) to ensure that the funding norms for operationalization of the Pre-tertiary law is in place and also pay attention to early childhood education.

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