The church should play a more proactive role in promoting early childhood education says the secretary general of the Samoa Council of Churches, Reverend Ma’auga Motu.
“When it comes to Early Childhood Education, I know that has to start from the church,” he said.
“I believe the church has the initiative to make this happen considering the fact that all church ministers have their own Sunday schools.”
“My suggestion is for every village to hold a meeting (fono) where everyone; starting from the church ministers, chiefs and their wives, the youth (aumaga) and all the women should be present.”
“It is everyone’s duty in a village to push and encourage children to attend school for their own good.”
“The parents can go about doing their work once their children are in school, knowing there are teachers to look after them.”
“It will be a good opportunity to have the youth of the village that are not teachers to be trained and employed as teachers so they can also contribute.”
Early childhood education will soon be part of compulsory education legislation in Samoa following last year’s government nation-wide human capacity index survey.
The result of the survey has shown that only 30 percent of the children from three to five years of age are enrolled for early childhood education.
The ministry is now looking at increasing to over 50 percent enrolment in the next ten years.
The CEO of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, Afamasaga Dr Karoline Fuata’i, said there are difficulties faced by some parents such as the location of the schools are too far or they are too busy with other family commitments.
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News category: Asia Pacific.
