Education
Source: The Chronicle
Information reaching The Chronicle the indicates that 7,256 girls, representing 33.69 percent from six districts in the Eastern Region, dropped out of basic school between the 2010 and 2012 academic years.
The districts are Ayensuano, Upper Manya, Birim North, Upper West Akim, and Kwahu Afram Plains North and South.
According to statistics available, of the 21,537 girls who enrolled in Junior High School 1 (JHS) in 2010, only 14,281 sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2012, with the 7,256 becoming dropouts in the six districts.
Though the Regional Coordinator in-charge of the Girl-Child Education Unit, Mrs. Cynthia Anim, was not able to provide adequate reasons for the massive dropout, available records to The Chronicle revealed that lack of parental guidance, poverty, and teachers not creating enabling environments, were some of the factors responsible.
Notwithstanding, teenage pregnancy was a major factor, following the 2014 Regional Report from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) indicating that 13,520 girls, between the ages of 12-15, were pregnant across the region.
In finding a workable solution to the alarming falling standard of education, especially, among girls, in the region, Mrs. Cynthia Anim, admitted that the earlier the region fights the canker, the better it would be for education delivery.
She disclosed that the Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) is mapping out strategies to curb the dropout rate and its related challenges on the education of girls.
But she was quick to disclose that the fight against drop-out among girls is not the sole mandate of GES, but all major stakeholders, particularly parents and teachers, who should build the capacity of these girls and counsel them to help keep them in school.
The Deputy Eastern Regional Minster, Mavis Ama Frimpong, said the Regional Coordinating Council, in collaboration with the Girl-Child Education Unit of the Ghana Education Service, had initiated a two-year strategic plan dubbed Eastern Regional Girl-Child Education Improvement Project, aimed at reducing the dropout rate among girls by 70 percent, and teenage pregnancy by 50 percent in the affected districts.
Ama Frimpong said the project, if effectively implemented and sustained, would help promote girl-child education in the region, and also ensure that school dropouts among girls is reduced.
She added: "The main goal of the project is to curb school drop-out and increase school completion rate among girls in the selected districts; also introduce intervention to attain gender parity and redeem girls from all forms of abuses that deny them from attaining high education and realising their full potential in life".
She said the RCC and Girl-Child Education Unit of the GES would require an amount of GH¢695,633 for the two-year pilot project.