Playgrounds attract children to school

Children playing heartily at the playground

IT has been widely acknowledged that children in many communities are attracted to schools with a feeding programme.

As it is evident, schools benefiting from the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) have extremely high enrolment figures.

However, for pupils in some rural schools in the Northern Region that do not have a feeding programme, the presence of playgrounds in their schools gives them the urge to attend school each passing day.

One of such schools is the Dakpemyili Primary School in the East Gonja district, which is one of the few rural schools that boast of a playground with these facilities: seesaw, merry-go-round, slide and rope swing.

During a recent visit to Dakpemyili, I came across a number of kids heartily engaged at the playground of the school.

One of them, Fadila Ndemu of the nursery class said the playground brings excitement to their lives.

“We like to play here because it makes us happy,” she said.

Her nursery mate, Huzeifa Mahama said among the play facilities, the one that excited her most was the seesaw.

Surprisingly, two of those kids were from a different school in another community.

“My name is Sumaila Yakubu. I am in class four at Kpandu Primary School,” one of them said and pointed to his friend, Mustapha Seidu, as his classmate.

They claimed they did not have a playground in Kpandu and so they sometimes walked to Dakpemyili, which is about 8 miles apart, just to spend sometime at the playground.

Their favourite was the ‘merry-go-round’ which they call ‘vilo’ in local Dagbani dialect.

“We wish they could construct a playground in our school so that we would not have to come here and play,” Yakubu appealed.

The playground, according to information that I gathered, was constructed in 2010 by a community-based organisation, the Presby Farmer’s Training and Child Development Programme (PFT-CDP) with funding from the Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC), an international child-centred organisation.

“Because the kids like the playground, everyday they feel motivated to come to school,” the Head Teacher of the school, Mr Ibrahim Mohammed Saani told The Mirror.

He said since it was constructed absenteeism had decreased.

Mr Saani indicated that the children were only allowed access to the playground during break time, but was quick to add that most a time the children get so engrossed in playing at the ground until their teachers sacked them back into their classrooms.

During my visit to other rural schools with such facilities, I noticed that, playgrounds were equally as important to pupils in those schools just as they were to those in Dakpemyili.

Experts agree that playgrounds play vital roles in the physical, intellectual and social development of children. They enhance the confidence, skills, creativity and general wellbeing of children.

In spite of this, playgrounds are often overlooked when school infrastructure is being considered in Ghana, with the excuse of lack of funds.

Fortunately, some NGOs, who are particularly focussed on early childhood development, give priority to the construction of playgrounds when providing school infrastructure.

So as pupils of the Dakpemyili Primary School continue to do their ‘merry go round’, their colleagues in other schools would have to wait until an NGO comes to their aid as it still looks unlikely that government would invest in the construction of playgrounds.

(Also published in The Mirror of May 25, 2013, page 32)