Stakeholders’ consultation workshop on the creation of a Dash Board to validate and update the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy of the Country has been held in Sunyani in the Bono Regional Capital. The updated policy would be submitted to parliament of Ghana for approval.
The essence of workshop was to support effective monitoring of the policy implementation and to consult the stakeholders on the layout of the Dash board and indicators for the policy implementation as captured in the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning framework.
This was made known by Madam Pearl Peters, the Principal Programme Officer and Head of Early Childhood Care and Development Unit of the Department of Children under the Ministry of Gender. She noted that the first policy was formulated in 2004 to guide the implementation of Early Childhood programme to promote a holistic development of children with the involvement of all major stakeholders. By 2020 she noted, there was a review and it was evaluated in 2020 and the timelines for the targets had elapsed.
The Principal Programme Officer added that there was also new development.
The major addition was the adoption of Nurturing Care Framework that spelt out evidence based approach for implementing the Early Childhood Programme. She observed that in 2020, the policy was evaluated to ascertain its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability. The evaluation, she said established that the policy was relevant and effective in producing results and effecting positive outcomes.
Madam Pearl noted however that, there were some risks in sustaining the outcomes. Some of them were inadequate resources, inequitable service delivery, and weak coordination of the multi-sectorial. Hence, there was recommendation for a review of the policy to address these findings to align with international and national priorities for effective implementation of the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD). In addition, there was a recommendation for the development of Monitoring and Evaluation Framework plan to guide the implementation of the policy..
The Regional Director for Department of Children in charge of Bono Region call for the provision of basic facilities for children in the basic schools such as furniture, learning and recreational facilities, among other as well as well posting of well trained staff to basic schools to give the children the best of training.
The participants were drawn from social welfare department, various District Assemblies, security agencies, CSOs, GES, selected MDAs and the media.
