Stakeholders meeting on Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDC)
Meeting with Proprietor and Proprietresses of ECDC’S Held on the 24th October 2022 at the Municipal Assembly Hall. The meeting started at exactly 9:53 with a prayer by Mr. Benjamin Basta. Self-introduction was than by all participants.
Deputy did the welcome address on behalf of MDC. He recommended the day care centres for their effort and note they play in developing the kids for the municipality.
The representative from the Ghana education service said the private school have played a pivot role in the education sector. He urge all schools that are not registered with the department to do so.
The new curriculum begins with early childhood. There is a structure for the learning centres to be friendly for the learners. He urged all schools to contact them to assist them in the set-up, training, logistic to educate the learners. He extends his education directors greetings to all.
The participant asked the difference between NACIA and GES. The rep. said NACIA is a monitoring body and GES in the main body that sees to the supervision and monitoring in the district in the municipality. GES does not register private schools.
Madam Daisy said pre-school is not under GES. 3 months to below 4years is registered under social welfare she gave the difference between day care and GES schools.
Madam Grace thank the regional director, HOD and staffs for being in attendance. She urge all centres to register with department. She said every child is the joy of a home, hence the centres have to take care of the children well to make it a good home. She said the heads of the centres should train their attendances to train them.
Madam Janet Adenyo gave the participants situational report on ECDC / Day care centres operations within the municipality. 35 day centers have been registered as at 2021 and currently four centres have shutdown. Four new centres are registered but yet to be certified. From her observation, some centres have all age group up to below 4years in the same room. Some school have poor lightening and cracked floor, some have no or few mats for the pupils to sleep on.
The challenges, some day care centres obstruct social welfare officer from getting access to their facilitates. Most centres are semi-wooden structure. Few or luck of playing materials relay collecting certificate and renewed of certificate. Most of the attendants have not been trained by the department.
Mr. Isaac Asante to the group through the legal framework. Day care centres are not schools, it is home away from home for the children. Day care centres are institution that provide supervision for the infants. He spoke about the inspection of the day care centres.
Madam daisy said the assembly should invite the day care centres for free fixing. Deputy Director Yaya said the assembly invites the executives of all associations for free fixing. The chairman of the private school association said for about 7 years now they have not been invited.
One of the participant ask that the social welfare officer should council themselves for some of their meeting to educate their parents during PTA.
Madam Deborah Diasy Kwabia took us through the methods of teaching young children. She ask the participants if a three months old baby can be taught? Most of participants said the baby can be taught.
Madam said the babies’ starts learning from the second trimesters of pregnancy. The main method of teaching young learners are the 7 primary learning styles: visual (spatial), aural (auditory), where sound and music is used. Verbal (linguistic), where the child learns best through words (verbal or written), physical (kinesthetic) learn through experience and rely on sense of touch, and are active. Logical (mathematical) learn through logic. Social (interpersonal) learn through group interaction. Solitary (interpersonal) does self-study. Children learn from known to unknown. We have the following learning style.
-outdoor learning
-realis (real object) into the classroom.
– Center/ modelling theme/ corner methods.
– Picture reading
– lecture method
She spoke about the two key tools which are the treasure basket and story sack. The treasure basket contain variety of items which the children play with and sometimes put them in their mouth to determine the type of object, using sense of smell, touch, taste, sight hand .
Evaluation is done through demonstration. MEO said the classroom should have 16 by 16 measurement, with two doors. Ventilation is also important. Health screening is to extended to the various school to curb the spread of typhoid sanitation and hand washing machine needs to be provided in the school.
Physical planning is basically concern with the facilities that are used for the day care centres. The layout of the facilities has to be brought to the office for the facilities to have a good layout. The centres should be easily accessible and must not be located near a refuse dump, noisy areas.