They must ensure that the grooming and education of children were paramount to make them responsible in their adult lives.

Mr Ayyub Morgan, Secretary of the Ta’lim Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Ghana, made the call as the Special Guest of Honour at the 44th Anniversary and Second Speech and Prize-Giving Day of the Ekumfi Attakwaa Basic School in the Central Region.

It was on the theme: “Making the Child the Focus of Education at the Basic School Level; What Must Be Done”.
Article 25 sub-section 1(A) of the 1992 Constitution prescribes that basic education shall be free, compulsory and available to all.

“However, crèche and nursery are yet to be recognised as part of basic education and this is not the best for the nation,” Mr Morgan said.

Basic education includes three years each of kindergarten, lower primary, upper primary and junior high school (JHS).
Normally children began basic school at age six and completed at age 15, a time they were not qualified by law to enter the world of work, he said.

“Subsequently the current government has made the attempt to redefine basic education to include three- year senor high school (SHS) for students to complete at 18 years so they could work”.

Mr Morgan said though basic education was designed to equip the child with knowledge and skills to start adult life and work, it had not received the required attention for effective educational foundation, as had been provided the SHS and tertiary education.

He mentioned the lack of infrastructure, inadequate teaching and learning resources, as well as failure of many teachers to undertake their responsibilities, while some parents also shirked their parental obligations as some hindrances.

All stakeholders, he said, must share the blame, adding: “We are simply refusing to take appropriate action to address this canker”.

He noted that the provision of infrastructure for basic schools was a constitutional requirement for the Central Government, metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), hence must be executed without discrimination due to political considerations.

Mr Morgan urged the various communities to own schools as proud properties and invest hugely in children’s education to groom them into patriotic citizens.

He said free education was a constitutional requirement and, as such, the public must avoid undermining it but rather take advantage and make the best out of it.

He called on the Ghana Education Service and the Muslim Education Unit to collaborate with the National Teaching Council to train and retrain teachers on child pedagogies.

Teachers must spend time to study the laws that regulate their work at the basic level to sharpen their knowledge, Mr Morgan added.