Helping Parents To Help Their Children
Education is the centrepiece of Nevis’ policies and programmes. As such, it has invested heavily in social development infrastructure with the construction of community centres and the restructuring of the Social Services Department. However, much remains to be done in terms of educational access and achievement of parents and adults who are educationally and socio-economically disadvantaged. Until recently there was only marginal support in the area of adult and non formal education, social skills and character education.
With the Nevis Island Administration’s current thrust towards social transformation, and the recognition of the key role of education in driving sustainable development, poverty reduction and the empowerment of citizens, it is essential to provide training for parents (and other adults) who are educationally disadvantaged so that they can reinforce and compliment school-based teaching and learning and help their children master literacy, numeracy, creative writing and information skills.
Parents are central to the success of their children. They give directions to their social activities and with their examples inspire them to succeed. Parents, who are educationally and socially disadvantaged, are unable to help their children with homework and social training. In Nevis, women head more than 60% of the households. Many of them are employed in low paying jobs; as a result of under-achievement in education. With these realities, many parents are unable to help their children educationally and socially.
It is therefore necessary to empower these parents as learners and co-educators so that they can coach and nurture their children in the home environment.
This project therefore seeks to impart basic knowledge and skills to disadvantaged parents of children from Kindergarten to Grade Three, in the areas of reading, mathematics, creative writing, information literacy skills and character education. The project will also endeavour to offer English as a second language to disadvantaged parents in the Spanish Speaking community.