What do you think should be right age for a child to start school
@wunnam (552)
Ghana
February 1, 2019 12:22am CST
If you look at twenty years back, we use to start school at the ages of five years and above and we were able to make it. But these days’ people send their children to school at the age of one, two and some even halve a year.
How I do ask myself is that: what will a child who is not up to a year or cannot talk benefit from going to school?
Are we not wasting our money, energy and time? So what do you think should be the right age to start school?
2 people like this
4 responses
@pumpkinjam (8754)
• United Kingdom
16 Mar 19
Sending them to school before they are 4 years old is not really school usually. It's more likely to be a nursery/creche or child-minder. Anyway, I don't think a child needs to be going to school before 4 or 5 but a few sessions at a nursery or play group can be beneficial.
I don't like the idea of children being in full-time nursery from when they are tiny babies - to me, that defeats the purpose of the parents having the child. Having worked in those environments, I can tell you that they are very rarely any good. Some people might feel they have no choice (if they have to work and don't have other options for childcare). Some people will argue that it is good for social interaction - I will always counter that argument with two things: 1. Social interaction can be learnt in lots of other ways and 2. They don't really learn social interaction in such an environment. They learn how to vie for attention in one specific type of setting instead of being introduced to different circumstances.
I also don't like that nurseries, even for tiny babies, have to all be educational and tick certain boxes. Children learn through lots of things, that's true, but a 6 month old baby shouldn't need to have targets and curricula.
Anyway, that's what I think. Some children are ready for school far sooner than others, of course. I don't have any problem with, say, a 2 or 3 year old having a few nursery sessions to give parents a break or to ready the child for school but I don't think formal, full-time education should start until at least 4 years old.
