ENSURE PROPER SECURITY OF DAY-CARE CENTRES (PAGE 11, JAN 26)

SOME parents in the Tema Metropolis and Ashaiman Municipality have urged operators of day care centres to ensure the security and safety of their children.
The parents said some children had gone missing from their day care centres because they had either strayed onto the streets or been lured by strangers and announcements had only been made about the children as missing without the mention of the names of the centres.
Some of these centres are so close to the roads and without proper fencing, while others simply do not have adequate security.
The concerned parents have, therefore, appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) to bring some sanity into the operations of the centres by enforcing strict rules to ensure the safety and security of the children.
They have also suggested that the authorities conduct regular inspections of the premises of these centres to ensure that trained proprietors, teachers and attendants were employed to take care of the children.
Some of the parents who did not want their identities disclosed, told the Daily Graphic that many of the centres charged high fees with the claim of giving exceptional care to the children but they lacked the necessary facilities.
Day care centres are supposed to give support to parents to enable them to attend to their official and other duties.
The idea is to offer the basic education to children as young as three months to about four years, depending on the facilities available at the centre.
The parents also expect to see playgrounds with educative playing materials to enable the children to learn while they play but according to them many centres do not have them.
They are also not happy with the limited space available to the increasing number of children since only small cubicles could be found in most day care centres.
A retired educationist and proprietress of the Sweet Mother Daycare Centre at Community 8, Tema confirmed that many day care centres in the metropolis did not have adequate security, adding that this type of work demanded the institution of security measures and that required financial resources.
Madam Kumah was concerned about the fact that drug addicts and some mentally challenged persons occasionally invaded the grounds of many of the centres except those who operated in homes and others who had proper security.
She said some sand winners had dug trenches on the compounds of some of these centres or very close to them, a situation that has created a lot of worry for parents and operators.
Madam Kumah regretted that even though several reports had been made to the security agencies, these had not yielded any positive results making it very uncomfortable for the operators.
Contrary to what most parents believe, Madam Kumah said it was not necessary to have playing materials for the children because they were very young.
Madam Kumah has started fencing her centre and said she would employ a security man.
Making further rounds within Tema, Ashaiman and Kpone to ascertain the conditions under which some of the centres operated, the Daily Graphic observed that some day care centres had inadequate security and no playgrounds, while others which had play areas had no playing materials.
At one of the centres in Tema, the Daily Graphic team walked in without any one asking questions because the gate was not locked, while the children were playing without any supervision.
At Kpone, the team observed that some proprietors were changing their structures from wooden to concrete, while others had children of different ages placed in the same cubicles that were also used as living rooms.
At Ashaiman, parents complained about the high fees and poor facilities.