The Executive Director of Child Right International Ghana, Bright Appiah says according to a survey conducted by his outfit, six in ten children in Ghana prefer the traditional form of teaching and learning hence wish to go back to school.
Mr. Appiah said, this yearn of children to go back to school is as a result of various issues they are encountering as they stay at home as part of government measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
He said one of these reasons as was discovered by the survey is abuse from parents at home. He stated that, children involved in the said survey indicated that they face different types of abuse from their parents. Be it verbal abuse, over burdened by chores among others.
“The abuse I’m talking off are verbal abuse; talking to children harshly, asking them to do work and some of them feel that its excessive because they are home, parents find it necessary to engage them in doing certain domestic activities that do not help them to learn on their own and all that.”
He went on to say that, some parents lack the ability to intellectually train their children in the aspect of formal education, hence turns to take out their frustration on the child which constitute abuse of the child.
“That is the major contributor if you look at the indicator we used. Children ask certain questions and because their parents are unable to give them the solutions or answers, the normal attitude that the parent will show to the child that ‘I know but I’m not going to tell you’… normally the parents will not use a mild language but will be on top of their voice to shout on you and all that.”
He said the presence of COVID-19 has exposed the kind of parenting environment that is in existence. Where what is expected of parents to do in terms of the social development of the children is lacking and parents only show commitment only when it comes to the economic aspect.
“Paying school fees, making sure that the children eat but to work on the cognitive development of children and also to build the social environment for them, a lot of parents do lack that skill to do that.”
The CRI-Ghana Executive Director further said “If you also pick six children out of ten, they said that they were spending six hours every day at home alone without the supervision of their parents. So clearly it gives that space for children to use it to do all manner of things that may not necessarily support them.”
He condemned this act saying, leaving a child without supervision for that long gives the child the time and space to engage in various activities that may not help the right improvement of the child.
