Imperative of training early childcare givers By Idowu Fasipe

 

In Nigeria, Early Childhood Care Development (ECCDE) is an aspect of Universal Basic Education UBE that was introduced in 1999 to increase the access of children in the country to basic education in the country. While stakeholders and like minds have been engaging to ensure a successful implementation and achievement of the objectives of the scheme, it is unfortunate that ECCDE is still faced with serious challenges in Nigeria.
The first one thousand (1,000) days of every child’s life are very crucial to his/her mental and social development. The early year’s stage is the most critical stage of a child’s life, because this is the period in life when the brain develops most rapidly and has a high capacity for change, and the foundation is laid for health and wellbeing throughout life.
Lancet educational survey reveals that globally over 200 million children do not reach their developmental potential in the first 5 years because they live in poverty, and have poor health services, nutrition and psycho¬social care. These disadvantaged children do poorly in school and subsequently have low incomes, high fertility, high criminality, and provide poor care for their own children. A 2016 data reveals that 250 million, or 43%, of children in low- and middle-income countries are unable to realize their full development potential.
According to UNICEF, in Nigeria, the proportion of children enrolled in pre-primary Early Childhood Care Centers still remains low at approximately 2.3 million children. This represents about 21 per cent of the population of children in this age group. In recent times, maternal employment has increase which has led to complete reliance of childcare for young children from birth to 5years of age.
The caregivers of these centers are generally unqualified as about 85 per cent do not possess basic qualifications and more than half have no formal education.
In 2015, the federal government of Nigeria planned to partner with State and Local Governments to recruit, train and deploy 500,000 unemployed graduates and NCE holders, who will be deployed to primary schools, thereby, enhancing the provision of basic education especially in the rural area. As at January 2018, Kaduna state still complains of not having enough skilled teachers to train her early years. Currently, of all the educational problems that beset Nigeria today, none is as persistent and as agonizing as the one relating to the training of competent teachers. Many of our modern day primary school teachers are not much more literate than the children they teach. Some of these teachers are not even trained for this level of education and most early year’s programs are managed by people who have never been in the classroom.
Some of the skills preschool teachers are exposed to when they get trained include expanding a child’s ability to express themselves which is the most important job of a preschool teacher, developing critical thinking skills in children, how to be sensitive and responsive to the needs of children, organizing activities that promote development and encourage children to behave in pro-social ways, creating language rich environment etc.
The training of early childhood development and education (ECDE) teachers in Nigeria should remain a priority and should be vigorously pursued because in recognition of the vital role well-trained professionals play in the quality of early childhood experiences for children ages. These skills can also be called soft skills and they include communication skills such as good writing and fine public speaking skills which will help preschool teachers record and deliver children’s progress to parents and other teachers. Another is creativity which is the ability to keep the attention of a child. Preschool teachers need to think of new and innovative ways to engage children to learn.
One other important skill is respect of differences. The ability to recognize the uniqueness of every child and adapting teaching styles to it is a good skill preschool teachers need to possess. They must also be prepared for multicultural classrooms with many ethnicities, cultures and traditions represented.
If as a parent you are still wondering why you should enroll your child or children in a preschool, you need to be aware that preschool is crucial stage to expose a child to more than 30million words. A child is expected to be exposed to 10,000 words a day and daily activities.
UNICEF recommends that to ensure Nigerian children fare well in early development and are protected from killer diseases, there should be a policy to include two years of free pre-primary education, six months of paid maternity leave and four weeks of paid paternity leave. Nigeria currently has just three months of paid maternity leave, only one year of free pre-primary education and no paternity leave at all, except for staff of the Lagos Public Service.
Presently, in our country, only about one in every 10 pre-primary school pupils is enrolled in early education activities. The goal of any investment in early childhood development is for all children in Nigeria, whether poor or rich, to attain their development potential.
On a final note, if the aim of early child development will be achieved, all teachers involved, will be required to be skilled and properly trained to do the job.

Fasipe writes from Ogba, Lagos
EDUCATION

Leave a Reply