Private proprietors of Pre-Schools in C/R urged to register

The Central Regional Pre-School Coordinator, Madam Comfort Myles-Mills has entreated all proprietors of Nursery Schools to register the pre-schools with the Department of Social Welfare before operating.

According to her, the nursery stage, which caters for children between age zero and three years, was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social Welfare, while the kindergarten stage was under the Ghana Education Service (GES).

Madam Myles-Mills, who made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the age required for kindergarten children was from four years.

The Region has a total of 2,130 pre-schools, of which 1,331 are public with the rest being private.

She admonished private pre-school owners to establish their schools in areas that were conducive to avoid epidemic outbreak. They should also desist from collecting exorbitant fees from parents and guardians.

Madam Myles-Mills said the major challenge the Directorate encountered in the previous years were lack of adequate hexagonal tables for the children and lack of attendants to assist the professional teachers at the kindergarten level.

The Directorate had therefore made requisition for more standardize furniture, and also appealed to the Government to allocate a quota of the Assembly’s Common Fund for the provision of logistics for pre-schools.

She noted that the prospects for year 2015 and beyond were promising for pre-schools, because the Directorate was in partnership with Sabre Charitable Trust, an educational non-governmental organization and had introduced a new learning system for some selected pre-schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis and the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality.

The pilot system, called ‘Playway method’ allowed the children to use local teaching and learning materials and local games to enhance learning processes in bamboo-built classrooms.

According to Madam Myles-Mills, these locally-built classrooms offered the children more conducive and attractive teaching and learning environment.

The scale up, she observed was to send this new programme to all the schools under the Directorate in the region shortly.

She used the occasion to wish all teachers, education workers and parents well, saying they should work hand in hand to promote the welfare of the children for them to develop both mentally and physically.