The Social Welfare coordinators at Cape Coast Metro Assembly have decided to take a stand on unregulated day care centres.
H.H Kunbah from Child Protection in the Social Welfare department stated that day care centres hold a considerable amount of responsibility caring for younger children, teaching them life skills whilst their parents are at work or otherwise occupied. It is a great opportunity for young childen to socialise with others before they reach school, and to start simple education and interactive activities.
After inspecting various new day care centres and speaking to local propieters, a need arose to educate and regulate the daycare industry. Social Welfare ran a workshop to educate owners of day care centres with their lawful requirements.
The premises of the day care centres will first be visited by the planning department who will confirm that the centre is not near a major road, public toilet or rubbish dump. It is also a requirement to have a substantial wall surrounding the day care centre to prevent children from straying.
Felicia Ankrah, Director of Social Welfare at Cape Coast Metro wanted to make clear to the audience of the workshop that a day care centre is not a school and as a result had many different requirements. The Social Welfare plan to inspect all day care centres in the Cape Coast area to check various regulations. These include having play equipment and toys, having daily routine charts and mattresses.
It is also a prerequisite to feed the children a hot meal. This obligation lead to a heated discussion at the day care forum, as some propetiers were frustrated to be operating like a charity as parents neglected to pay their fees. It appeared that some of the requirements were not practical for owners to initiate without support from Social Welfare.
Social Welfare will also be inspecting premises for washing facilities which include running water and soap. Toilet facilities (W/C), drinking water and children’s detailed personal records would also be viewed. Mrs Ankrah endevours to have one attendant and one care giver to every 25 children. All members of the forum and workshop insisted that the Metro Assembly should follow up on their reports and inspections so that day care centres can improve or be punished if they wrere running illegal operations, which gives a farier foundation to the whole industry.
It is also encouraged for day care centres to only admit children after 6 months of age so that they can have breast milk from birth. Although it was admitted that this is difficult since the national maternity leave is three months. Mrs Ankrah said this is a fine opportunity for families to be encouraged to start planning their children.
The biggest requirement will be trained attendees to assist the children. A sixteen week program will be introduced that trains individuals on a variety of different subjects like First Aid, Child development, methods of teaching young children and how to manage a day care centre. Trainees will also be taught nutrition and personal hygiene for young children, laws surrounding children, how to keep accurate records of students and simple accounting.
All trainees will also be required to do practical work to make sure they use organisational policies, procedures and individual children’s profiles to plan activities and provide care to children, facilitating their leisure and play and enabling them to achieve their developmental outcomes.
Augustina Dadzie from St Anns preschool, said they workshop was a success. “Most people did not know the rules and regulations surrounding preschools; today’s forum meant we now have all the necessary information to register our schools and be kept up to date with new policies.”
Mrs Dadzie was concerned that she would lose staff to the training program, but it was decided that the program would take up a mere four hours of each day so that day care centres suffer as little impact as possible.
All day care centre owners are urged to visit the Social Wefare department at Cape Coast Metro Department to make sure they are adhering to all new regulations, rules and registrations or risk imprisonment and/or immense fines as per the Childrens Act 1998.
-Olivia Berry (Projects Abroad)
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