Ensuring quality early childhood education provision: The indispensable role of parents in the Effutu Municipality of Ghana

There is a notion that children are the hope of the future of a society. This has led
to Early Childhood Education becoming the focus of debate at all levels of government. However,
the benefits emanating from Early Childhood Education cannot be realized on its own without a
key component of the indispensable role parents play. Consequently, this ethnographic research
employed a focus group interview to collect data from 14 participants from the Effutu Municipality
to answer the research questions formulated to guide the study. The study found that if parents
actively involve themselves in the education of their children, it can build a rapport between them
and the school to be informed about what goes on in the school about their children so they can
continue at home. This can increase their children's happiness at school, and possibly encourage
them to participate in school activities. However, the study found that the parents were faced with
challenges ranging from financial constraint and their lack of education to wrongly prioritizing
their children's education which potentially prevented them from living up to their parental
expectation. From the findings, it is recommended that parents should re-orient their perception
and attitude towards early childhood education and consider it to be a critical stage in their
children's educational ladder and subsequent general development as human beings. They should
also visit their children's schools whenever need be, and they should have time for their children
and be interested in their education.