Participants at the Early Years Childcare Conference on Saturday unanimously called for adequate attention to children from 0-5 years for cognitive teaching, care, training and development.
Early Childcare Conference which held at Lekki Coliseum, Providence Street, Lekki had in attendance over 350 participants.
The conference with the theme: “Starting Early, Starting Right” was organised by Alpha Global, a bespoke Children Service organisation, with a goal to educate, enlighten empower, enable and encourage educators
The discussants and the panelists discussed on various topical issues including `Safeguarding Children: What it means and why it’s important’ by Fela Durotoye, who was the keynote speaker.
Others are `The Journey So Far: Vision Sharing, Future Plans, `Creating A Sustainable Early Learning and Children System for Nigeria and Africa.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Folasade Adefisayo, talked about “The Role of Government in Early Years of Education (Regulations, Law, Curriculum”.
Adefisayo said that Lagos state was experiencing population explosion which had a lot of impact on adequate supervision of schools on the part of the government, hence all hands must be on deck to arrest declining standard of education.
“The population of Lagos is growing and the growth is as a result of migration, mostly unmarried people.
“For this reason, there are many schools springing up with poor standards.
“For us as a government, we want the children of the poor to have the equivalent of what the children of the rich gets in terms of quality education.
“We are also training the next generation of teachers for the state,” she said.
The Special Adviser to Ogun State Governor on Education (Primary and Secondary), Ronke Soyombo, said the parents need to care of the future generation by starting early with them.
“We need to adequately care for the future of this children now because today is the future and we need to start early,” she said.
Another facilitator, Irene Bangwell, a Sex Educator, talked about the importance of early inculcation in the children the skills of body safety, skills and self respect.
Phinnah Ikeji, a Parenting Teens Consultant, talked about eight practices for parent and children relationships.
The eight practices are; peaceful home, Care for each other, respect for each other, respect of different opinions, love in the family, compassions among family members, celebrating each other and peace making in the family.
The convener of the conference and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alpha Global, Caroline Popoola, said that the age between 0-5 was unique to the cognitive development of any child and must be well taken care of.
“The age between 0-5 is unique for education because this is when the children are molded, so we need to be careful of what we pass around.
“We want to partner with all the stakeholders in education sector to encourage good practices and ensure that we are doing it right for the future of our country,” she said.
Awards were given to some people.
One of the awardees, Aronde Adebayo, Proprietor of Sadek School Ijora-Badiya, a scholarship-based school, said that the award was given to him by the organisers of the event meant much to him.
“I got the award based on my philanthropic gesture in empowering the indigent students in Ijora environment. I give 10 scholarships to children whose parents cannot afford to send them to school,” he said.
Activities at the event included panel discussion and presentation of awards among others.
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