Co-founder of Scribble Works Publishing House, Daniel Amedza-Philips has described the educational systems in the country as inadequate in its influences for child growth.
He was speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on CitiFm as a panelist discussing on the topic, ‘Improving Foundational Literacy and Numeracy through Hybrid Models of Learning’.
The forum took place on the 27th of March, 2023.
Amedza-Philips noted that part of the inadequacy is derived from the lack of proportionality of teachers to students.
”There’s an imbalance in all of the factors with all the other factors. Talk of professional teachers who are going to handle all these kids as the numbers have increased. I mean the number of teachers must also increase proportionally looking at instructional materials; teaching and learning. Lots of children are now young to school so are there enough materials available?. If teachers are not proportional, it means that the student to teacher ratio is going to increase so it’ll translate to the amount of time to attention the teacher can have.” he said.
Education officer at UNICEF Ghana, Christopher Nkrumah, who was also speaking as a panelist on the forum mentioned that children learn at a faster pace when technology is incorporated in teaching and learning.
”Education technology actually sets the stage where one is able to access the students. You are able to make it more fun and students are also able to see their attainment level and opens them up to a lot of opportunities. Children with technologies learn at a faster pace to endless possibilities and have the opportunity to refer back.” he said.
The Vice-Principal of Infant School Ghana International School, Donna Gordon-Apeagyei added that the incorporation of technology in learning makes it easier for young learners and broadens their mind.
She was also speaking as a panelist on the forum.
”There are so many opportunities to make educational experiences very exciting and also to take children from their boundaries. So for example, if you’re using A Google tour, you can go to another country when you’re learning about geography or you can use it as a stimulus for writing. You can visit a virtual museum. You can talk about art, you can use it as a stimulus or even on your phone. There’re apps for phonics. We’re talking about literacy for children developing literacy and numeracy. There’re apps that teach how to pronounce words to develop the language. They can in real time collaborate with other teachers in school, in other schools around the get access to the top most recent research for free using technology,” she said.
Amedza-Philips also added that parents have a role to play in child development by supervising their activities on the internet.
”Once you give kids access, they jump from one thing to the other and that’s when parental control comes in. Parents need to know how to monitor and control their kids as a child security measure online. For google per say, there is family link for children. One shouldn’t give a device to a child with his account on it as it exposes them to a variety of things.” he said.
