Early childhood care providers in the Upper East Region on Tuesday called on government to consider including children between the ages of four and five years enrolled in pre-school in the
Capitation Grant and the School Feeding Programme.
A report from Bongo District showed that out of 90 primary schools only seven are on the school feeding programme which the care givers considered
inadequate and appealed for a serious study of the conditions of pre school education to improve teaching and learning.
The care givers made the call at a workshop organised for stakeholders of Early Childhood Care Development (ECCD) by the Department of Children of the Ministry of Women and Children in Bolgatanga.
Madam Beatrice Issaka, District ECCD Coordinator of Talensi/ Nabdam District, said rural families who fell below the income bracket kept their children between four and five years at home for lack of financial resource to support the children to go to school.
She said support for feeding school children by non governmental organisations (NGOs) like World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) would
not be there forever and that required the government to have an overview of the ECCD.
Mad Issaka said because no seriousness had been attached to ECCD there were no measures to ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of the
programme.
This is unlike the primary schools where Circuit Supervisors of Ghana Education Service (GES) received fuel and other logistics to visit schools on supervision which is absent in the case of pre schools.
Madam Issaka said kindergarten teachers who trained children and groomed them for acceptance into primary schools were not provided any training nor enjoyed any social security benefits.