Early Childhood Development in Ghana
What is Early Childhood Development about
Early childhood development (ECD) encompasses physical, socio-emotional, cognitive and motor developing between 0-8 years of age. The early years are critical, 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. A continuum-from preconception through the formative early years-is needed to safeguard and maximize children’s development.
What is the state of ECD in Ghana
The Ghana government, in its effort to provide needed environment for children to access essential ECD services, developed the ECCD policy, which launched in 2004. The rationale behind this policy is to provide a framework for ministries, Departments and Agencies to meaningfully contribute to the growth, development and survival of the child. This has led to the operation of a new vision for kindergarten education with emphasis on activity based learning. It also stresses on the key importance of the teacher’s understanding of how the child develops and learns
What CLCD is doing
For early childhood development, one of the areas CLCD is working on is to increase the knowledge of childcare providers and caregivers on the most up-to-date research, interventions, and issues in childhood development. To this effect, we launched the Research for Practice (R4P) magazine in 2017. The R4P magazine is the culmination of the hard work of many contributors to bridge the gap between research and practice. It summarizes several research articles on children into language that is accessible and understandable for people from many different backgrounds.
