A shortage of teachers in remote communities is threatening efforts to keep children out of child labour and trafficking, with some basic schools operating with only two or three teachers despite requiring up to nine.
The shortage is forcing schools to combine classes under multigrade arrangements, creating a major gap in the quality of education available to children in communities already considered vulnerable to child labour.
Children rescued from labour are facing an additional barrier to staying in school, with some travelling six to seven kilometres from settler communities to reach their schools.
Speaking at the engagement on October 6, the Head of Office of Right To Play (RTP) Ghana, Harrison Akubor, who disclosed this, said the distance was affecting attendance and making it difficult to sustain their reintegration into education.
He said poverty was further exposing children to labour, while inadequate logistics for social welfare officers were limiting the ability of child protection structures to respond promptly when children’s rights are violated.
The challenges were highlighted at a stakeholder engagement on the ‘My Life, My Rights and My Life, My Future’ projects by RTP, where progress made in child protection, education and livelihood empowerment was reviewed alongside measures needed to sustain the gains.
Remote schools
Mr Akubor said the distance between settler communities and main communities was one of the serious challenges identified through monitoring.
He said some children rescued from labour had to travel long distances to school, affecting their attendance.
Mr Akubor said RTP was working with the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service and local government structures to find ways of deploying teachers to remote communities.
He also appealed for an early resolution of the teachers’ strike, saying children in some project communities were currently loitering because they were not attending school.
Teacher deficit
For his part, the Project Manager of the ‘My Life, My Rights’ project, Julius Kwami Tsatsu, said teacher attrition remained a major challenge, particularly in Asunafo North.
He said the district had more than 400 communities and a teacher deficit estimated at between 300 and 400, but only 44 teachers were posted there after the latest recruitment exercise.
Mr Tsatsu said some schools that should have nine teachers, including the head teacher, had only two or three teachers, forcing classes to be combined.
The situation, he said, created an unfair educational environment for children in deprived communities who would eventually be expected to write the same examinations as children in urban areas.
Protection system
Mr Tsatsu said the project had established 20 Community Child Protection Committees in its 50 communities to strengthen the identification and response to child protection cases.
He said the committees had identified 144 cases, with more than 90 per cent addressed.
The project, he said, was targeting 17,000 children and youth, 3,000 parents and 400 teachers, and has so far reached about 11,000 children and 3,000 youth.
Mr Tsatsu added that poverty remained a major cause of child labour, making livelihood empowerment necessary to address its root causes.
Child agency
Theacting Project Manager of the My Life, My Future project, Josephine Efuajidua Abafo, said 4,320 children had been reached out of a target of 4,800.
She said child clubs had helped children understand their rights, distinguish between child labour and acceptable child work and identify structures to approach when they needed protection.
