‘Address issues that keep girls out of school’
The Brong Ahafo Regional Manager of ActionAid Ghana, Madam Christina Amarchey, has called on traditional authorities, parents, district assemblies and educational authorities to help address socio-cultural practices that keep girls away from school.
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According to her, if the practices that militate against the welfare of girls in the society are not addressed, Ghana cannot meet her goal of bridging the gender gap in education in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3.
Madam Amarchey, who made the call at the Tain District launch of the Complimentary Basic Education ( CBE) project at Nsawkaw in the Brong Ahafo Region, said some of the children who registered for functional literacy education in the district had abandoned the programme, adding that majority of them were girls.
Madam Amarchey, therefore, called on traditional authorities, parents, education authorities and the Tain District Assembly to continue to ensure that the right to education of every child in the district was met, as guaranteed in the 1992 Constitution, as well as in many international instruments to which Ghana is a signatory.
She suggested to the district assembly to consider taking punitive actions against recalcitrant parents who refused to enroll their children in school, in spite of the Free Compulsory Basic Universal Education (FCUBE) guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution.
The CBE project, an initiative of the Ministry of Education, with support from the Department for International Development (DFID), is aimed at getting a total of 120,000 children aged eight to 14 across the country into the formal school system at the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year.
In the Brong Ahafo Region, a total of 1,500 out-of-school children from three districts are to benefit from free tuition in literacy, numeracy and writing in their mother tongue for nine months to enable them to go back to school next academic year under the CBE project.
The beneficiary districts in the Brong Ahafo Region are Tain, Banda and Atebubu-Amantin, which are also considered to be among the deprived districts in the country.
The CBE project is being implemented by ActionAid Ghana, in collaboration with the Social Development and Improvement Agency (SODIA) and the Ghana Education Service ( GES) in the Brong Ahafo Region.
Madam Amarchey expressed the hope that at least 90 per cent of the 1,500 children who would be taken through the nine-month classes would be able to join formal school next academic year.
"Let us recognise that basic education is free, compulsory and universal. The United Nation Committee on Education, Social and Cultural Rights has clearly stated that ‘free’ basic education means education at no cost to the parent and the child, and the word ‘compulsory’ serves to highlight the fact that neither parents, guardians nor the state are entitled to treat as optional the decision as to whether the child should have access to primary education," she stated.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Tain, Mr Jones Samuel Tawiah, who launched the project, suggested that much attention should be given to vocational training as it would not only help in the development of the individual in particular, but also the nation at large.
He announced that the assembly, in its 2014 budget, which was to be approved by the general assembly on November 8, 2013 had allocated GHc532,538.90, representing 27.2 per cent, to the educational sector, out of a total budget of GH¢1,959,845.00, adding that that represented the highest in terms of sector by sector allocations.
The Tain District Director of Education, Mr Patrick Doni, appealed to parents to make the education of their children a top priority, since it was the greatest legacy they could bequeath their children.
Some of the beneficiaries who shared their experiences said they dropped out of school as a result of lack of support from their parents, and expressed the joy that the programme had come at the right time to get them back to school.
Daily Graphic/Ghana