30 Aug 2017

Lehututu Primary School head, Mr Tebogo Bogosi says pre-education is critical in laying foundation for formal education. In an interview, Mr Bogosi said pre-primary education was important in exposing students to the school environment at a young age.

He said government also introduced pre-primary education with the aim to foster and enhance child development.

He explained that education at that stage was offered through play and engaging children in fun activities.

n the past, he said it was difficult to teach standard one pupils not knowing what was expected of them, adding that teachers spent a lot of time familiarising students with school, thus delaying the teaching and learning process.

Pre-primary education, he added targeted children aged four and a half for them to proceed to standard at the age of five and a half.

Further, he indicated that the programme had benefited most of parents who could not afford to take their children to private pre-schools.

Again, he said pre-primary education also enhanced the notion of inclusive education and schooling, while framework learning ideas were personal, emotional and part of social development.

He added that language development, early literacy, mathematical and scientific thinking was also at the fore of such initiative.

He said the programme would develop students to understand and appreciate who they were.

“This self-understanding will be in terms of self awareness, emotional development and interaction with others,” he said.

He further said through pre-primary education, children developed their language skills.

That, he said would enable them to communicate effectively and facilitate learning in other areas.

He added that children would develop gross and fine motor skills, creativity and appreciate beauty through art.

As such, he emphasised the role of parents in children’s education as critical partners, especially for young children.

He added that parents were children’s first educators.

He thus encouraged parents to liaise with schools in order to understand more about their children’s learning needs and also give information about children to the school.

He also encouraged parents to ensure that children were well and healthy by providing them with basic necessities of life.

He said parents had a responsibility to teach their children appropriate manners and respect for other people. ENDS