A report on Kindergarten education by SEND Ghana, has revealed that about 49 percent of KG teachers in Ghana, currently, have no training for the job.
The report indicates that the situation is worse in private KGs where almost 76 percent of teachers remained unqualified sharply contrasting GES’s five percent expectation.
The study, which commenced in May 2017 and lasted for three months, targeted two private and two public KGs per district except for Wa East, which had no private KG.
The research comprised 118 of 120 schools in 30 districts in Greater Accra, Northern, Upper East and the Upper West regions.
SEND Ghana’s Senior Programme Officer, Mrs. Harriet Nuamah Agyemang, speaking at the launch of the report in Accra, said it was important for the Ministry of Education to create training modules that allows KG teachers to upgrade.
“The upgrade is necessary in order to convey the right content to pupils during teaching”, she indicated.
The study suggests that government provides safe and adequate infrastructure equipped with furniture that met standards to enhance access and quality KG education.
“Government must see to it that infrastructure constructed either by the state or private KG owners include appropriate and accessible water and sanitation facilities,” it said.
The organization has also made recommendations to the GES to ensure that all qualified private kindergartens are accredited before being allowed to operate.
It said, 32 percent of private schools were not accredited and urged the GES to give such schools limited time, not exceeding one year, to follow the right procedures to be accredited.
GES’s Coordinator in charge of Private Schools, Mr. Samuel Ntow, said even though government was doing a lot on the issue of accreditation, there were still challenges due to the non-existence of endorsed policy to address the situation.
He said for this reason, a new National Inspectorate Board had been inaugurated to regulate the operations of private KGs.
By Wisdom Jonny-Nuekpe
