Lessons in girl power in Ghana's schools
There are women walking through Accra's crowded streets performing remarkable balancing acts.
But there are other bigger balancing acts facing young women in this West African country.
How do they stay in education and avoid pressures such as early marriage and leaving school without any of the basic skills needed for work?
An innovative interactive education project is trying to improve girls' opportunities in school. Making Ghanaian Girls Great is a pilot project testing daily catch-up lessons in English and maths in 72 state schools in two regions of Ghana.
Teacher absenteeism
The project, implemented by GEMS Education Solutions, is funded by the UK government's Department for International Development, as part of a project to help educate a million of the world's poorest girls, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
It uses a form of online television, providing live lessons from a studio in Accra. The schools, without internet access and without a reliable power supply, are equipped to receive the lessons with a satellite dish and solar panels.
It's an interactive two-way system, so teachers in the television studio can talk directly and take questions and answers from pupils working with their own teachers in classes.
As well as one-hour lessons in maths and English there are after-school clubs - called Wonder Women lessons - designed to build-up girls' confidence and give them a chance to talk to role models. Girls can ask questions about health, education or careers - and the lessons are aimed not just at girls at school, but also those who have dropped out.
Multiple marriages
The project was launched in Accra last week, with support from education officials and local traditional leaders.
Chairing the event was Nana Ogyedon Tsetsewah, a chieftain in Gomoa Akyempim in Ghana's central region. Her elevation to this traditionally male role was itself a cause of resentment.
But she says how she really started a scandal was refusing to accept a system of multiple marriages, in which young women became older men's wives.
These young girls, only children themselves, are then effectively cut off from education and any chance of wider horizons.
"What happens is a girl of 11 or 12 years gets pregnant and she drops out of school. They think the woman's role is to have children."
'Life is war'
The obstacle to education in rural Ghana isn't a lack of school buildings, she says, it's about ingrained prejudices towards girls. Uneducated parents don't value education for girls. "There's always that pull back," says Nana Tsetsewah.
There is a local proverb in her language that she says sums up the tough daily struggle of the rural poor: "Life is war."
But Nana Tsetsewah says there are changes - mobile phones and the internet are letting young people see another world and it's creating its own unexpected pressures.
Young people are frustrated by seeing an unobtainable life. From rural Ghana they're looking in at the global shop window of YouTube and Facebook - and they don't want to work the land any more.
She says she is a supporter of modernization - and says it will bring gains - but also recognizes "we're losing our culture bit by bit".
Tin roof and satellite
Muniratu Issifu, project manager for Making Ghanaian Girls Great, says that keeping girls in education is a key to making progress. But the schools have to be seen by parents to be providing a good quality education. Something as practical as bad weather or bad roads could mean teachers routinely missing lessons, she says.
Mataheko school, in the Ningo Prampram district, is testing the interactive lessons.
It has bare floors and old wooden desks, with goats and chickens pottering around outside in the playground. But poking through the tin roof is a satellite dish, which links the school to the lessons being delivered by a teacher in a small television studio in Accra.
The screen is a whitewashed wall and it shows videos, singing and clapping exercises and the other classes taking part at the same time.
Measuring progress
Head teacher Vanderwell Augustt Gordor welcomes the extra lessons. It's a much more active style of learning and part of the process is to share different teaching techniques.
Gordon Carver, project director for GEMS, says there will be a two-and-a-half-year tracking process to see how the results might have been improved for those children taking part.
In many ways it might be seen as a case of necessity being the mother of invention - or a rather sophisticated workaround. It addresses the absence of broadband or reliable electricity and a shortage of teachers. It's a durable, scalable use of computer technology to fill a gap in learning and teacher training.
Digital learning
Curiously this experiment in West Africa taps into some of the ideas being tested in Western education systems.
Digital learning is a hot topic, whether in the form of online masterclass lessons for schools or massive online open courses for higher education.
Charlotte Pierre, deputy director for the DFID in Ghana, says that education shouldn't be seen in isolation. Improving girls' education benefits the well-being of the wider community, improving health and reducing the likelihood of early marriage.
The UK government's aid policy has a big push on girls' education and teacher quality.
In Ghana, Ms Pierre says "inequality remains a big issue", with the need to narrow the gap in outcomes between the richest and poorest and girls and boys.
It's a country with many visible contrasts. There has been strong and sustained economic growth - with growing trading partners such as China. The roads of the capital are choked with cars - even though there are potholes that seem to be the size of small caves. Ghana has invested in education as the passport to becoming a middle-income country.
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