By JOHN ONAH, Abuja –
Early child education or learning as entrenched in the second target of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 is geared toward ensuring that, by 2030, “all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education”. In this Article, JOHN ONAH takes takes a look at the move as a strategy to reduce drastically, out of school children in Nigeria.
In a society like ours, where a child is increasingly posed with a lot of distractions and influences in life, the need for early childhood education becomes invaluable.
The realities of peer group influence, inordinate childhood curiosity and lack of proper parental guidance at home are some of the issues that might divert a child’s attention from education and other responsibilities, hence, the need for a child to enrolled early in education.
However, a child’s early enrollment into education gives him the needed mental and emotional development as well as positively prepare him for other tasks later in life.
In the school environment, children who get enlisted early enough enjoy the act of collaborative learning which gives them the opportunity to study together with their friends and classmates under the tutelage of the class teacher. This would no doubt help some dull ones get the required positive influence to improve academically.
Evidently, early childhood education gives a child a sense of responsibility to discover himself and start setting achievable goals early in life. When a child sets out for school every morning, his or her mind has been unconsciously focused towards solving academic issues as well as setting goals that will position him to attract success later in life.
Apparently, parents are encouraged to do the needful to enroll their children and wards early in school as its benefits are enormous.
A visit to the ECCDE Centre, which is located at Alifodio primary school, Bodinga Local Government, Sokoto, during a fieldwork session, organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the pupils were seen sitting down and playing together happily despite the poor environment they find themselves.
On arrival, the pupils are seated in a circle on the floor. Most of the time, they would stand in uniformity to match the activity in question with an action on the directive of a teacher.
Amina Shehu is the instructor, who commanded the pupils to repeat a song they earlier learned, while they stood up in unison responding to the directive by clapping of hands and body demonstration. They talk and listen to her as she unfolds another drama activity and a lot more.
On her part, a 5 year old girl called Nana Kadijah in a response to a question pushed to her by our reporter on what she was taught earlier in the day said simply, (abinchi) meaning our teacher teaches us food.
On his part, the Head teacher, Abubakar said the Early Child Education (ECE) initiative is a good way of attracting children to school which is a sure way of influencing them through the peer group.
According to him, they enjoy every bit of the activity and could not wait to come back to school the following day. Even when the session elapsed they kept clapping and meditating on what they had learnt and sometimes, call their friends’ names in their dreams.
Bawa San, who doubled as SBMC Chairman as well Turaki Bondiga, while praising the the initiative, however lamented the shortage of teachers.
“On our part, we engage on sensitisation, calling on the parents to allow their children to key into the programme as a way of reducing out of school children which is rampant in northern states”, he said.
He called for improved ECCDE Centres and the need for all pre-schools and early childhood development as a sure way to help solve the issues of the over 10 million out of school children in Nigeria.
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