Encourage youth to study Home Economics — Dr Kudonoo
The president of the Ghana Home Economics Association (GHEA), Dr Enyonam Kudonoo, has called on parents and management of second cycle institutions to encourage the youth to study Home Economics.
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According to her, some people look down on the course with the wrong perception that students who pursue it are those who did not perform well at the basic education level, and therefore study the course in order to have formal secondary school education.
She lamented that those who practised Home Economics were discouraged because of how they were treated by others due to the perception they had about the course, hence the need to sensitise the public to the importance of Home Economics and the Home Economics profession.
Challenges
Speaking to the Daily Graphic last Thursday, Dr Kudonoo stated that people perceived Home Economics as a course which was about only cooking, sewing and maintaining the home.
She, however, debunked those perceptions, stating that Home Economics was deeper and wider than cooking, sewing or maintaining the home, and drew from a range of disciplines to explain that Home Economics helped to achieve optimal and sustainable living standards for individuals, families and communities.
She said Home Economics was a Science and an art and by implication, was an academic discipline and a curriculum area connected to everyday living in households and wider societal arenas.
Dr Kudonoo indicated that the details of the academic discipline entailed project management, entrepreneurship and small business development, personal finance, child development and guidance and consumer education.
Pure science
Dr Kudonoo stated that to practise Home Economics at the tertiary level, one needed to add two pure Science subjects to the basic Science they pursued at the secondary school level, indicating that these pure Science courses, which could be Physics, Biology or Chemistry, prepared them academically for the tertiary level if they wanted to study Home Economics.
She, therefore, recommended to management of senior high schools and the Ministry of Education to include the two pure Science subjects in the existing package that came with Home Economics in order to fully prepare students for the tertiary level.
She also advised parents to encourage their children to take up the course for healthy and sustainable nationwide family living, stressing, “The introduction of Home Economics into the school curriculum was to prepare individuals to establish families that build and maintain systems of action which lead to maturity in self-development or self- esteem, enlightening cooperative participation, analysing and formulating social goods and means for accomplishing them.”
The GHEA
The GHEA is a professional association of all home economists in Ghana and a member of the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE), with the objective of projecting Home Economics and its related fields for healthy and sustainable family living.
The GHEA will celebrate the World Home Economics Day on March 21 to publicise and promote the significance of Home Economics and the Home Economics profession, at the University of Education in Winneba in the Central Region.