The Executive Officer of Leyden Educational Consultancy of the United Kingdom (UK), Dr James Owusu, has said the neglect of early childhood education in the country is the cause of poor performance in numeracy, literacy and phonetics among children in Ghana.
Dr Owusu said this had translated into affecting the reading skills of most Ghanaian children and slowed down the progress of childhood development, leading to low performance in skills.
He added that the problem is born out of the fact that most of the early childhood schools were privately owned with unqualified teachers: “So we think that if we want to develop that area then we need to put investment there.”
Dr Owusu told the DAILY HERITAGE that as a matter of urgency, the government must support these early childhood schools to raise the quality of teaching and learning to improve the numeracy and literacy among Ghanaian children before they start basic school.
“Elsewhere, more attention is placed on the early childhood schools because it is the beginning of learning and if that foundation is not strong, it has effect on the whole system,” Dr Owusu said.
He made this statement in Accra during a day’s education and career fair organised by Leyden Educational Consultancy of the UK on the theme ‘Education Beyond the Classroom, Uniting Talent with Opportunity.’
The educationist said early childhood education refers to education given children aged two to five which involves numeracy, literacy and development of phonetic skills in Montessori or Kindergarten in Ghana.
Dr Owusu added that Leyden Educational Consultancy would in the second week of November officially open Leyden Educational Consultancy, Alision Learning Centre, at Tesano, near Peace FM to help Ghanaians learn outside the classroom with employable skills.
He said the centre aims at giving opportunity to teeming Ghanaian youth who could not get the opportunity to get university degrees to learn on their own with help from instructors online to develop theoretical skills.
The centre is to help students get access to computers to help them choose from a variety of courses such as humanity, all the sciences and a host of others with an internationally recognised diploma certificate.
The executive officer added that duration of the course varies and is free; what students have to pay for is cost of electricity, maintenance and use of computers.
He said the duration is divided into three modules, namely peak, normal and off-peak and is pay as you go.
“It is not costly because if someone is offering project management which lasts for 30 hours and the person is required to pay GHȼ 1.00 for using the internet for an hour, then everyone can apply. In the future, we are looking forward that corperate organisations will support so that it will be totally free,” he stated.
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