Multi-million dollar contract launched to support girl child education
A $41.7 million partnership contract to support 4,000 girls through senior high has been launched in Accra, to mark the United Nations (UN) day of the girl child on Friday.
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The 10-year programme which will also benefit another 2,000 young women through their tertiary education is a partnership between Campaign for Female Education (Camfed Ghana) and the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme.
At the launch of the programme in Accra, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, Mr Mathias A. Puozaa, stressed the need for more parents, especially those in the northern sector of the country, to be enlightened to appreciate the need to send the girl-child to school.
According to him, most girls do not continue their education because they elope to marry, “sometimes with the connivance of their parents”.
He said the issue of girls not attending school was a real problem in the northern part of the country and, therefore, thanked Camfed Ghana for working in all the three regions in the north.
Camfed Ghana, which is an international organisation dedicated to the eradication of poverty, through female education, started operating in Ghana in 1998 with the aim of providing educational opportunities to children from rural communities from the three regions in the north and the Central Region.
The MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme is a 10-year, $500 million initiative, which seeks to educate and develop the next generation of leaders in selected African countries.
The Executive Director for Camfed Ghana, Ms Dolores Dickson, at the launch of the programme said it would deliver holistic, financial, social and academic support to the beneficiaries and to create pathways for their transition to employment and entrepreneurial activities or further education.
She said beneficiaries would be selected from among young girls in rural communities in their areas of operation based on their academic achievement and leadership promise.
The Director of Youth Learning at the MasterCard Foundation, Ms Deepali Khanna, said the programme aimed at educating an estimated 15,000 young people from economically disadvantaged communities in the countries where it operated.
She said the programme at the institutional level, would develop best practices to identify, educate and mentor students and transit them from the secondary to higher education and into the workforce.
The Vice Chair of the Camfed International Board, Ms Miranda Curtis said Camfed envision’s a world in which every child is educated, protected, respected and valued and grows to turn the tide of poverty.
The Head of the Girl-Child Unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms Mathilda Bannerman, said Ghana had made progress in achieveing equal access to education at the primary level mainly through the help of non-governmental organisations but said there was still more to be done to get all girls into school.
She urged the beneficiaries to ensure that they made good use of the opportunities that they had got to ensure that they would be self-sufficient in future.
Professor Mrs Florence Ama Dolphyne, a former Lecturer of the University of Ghana, who chaired the programme, called for more investment in the education of the girl-child.
By Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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