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Betrothal, early marriage affecting
girl-child education in two Northern districts
Bole (N/R), July 7, GNA- Mr. Charles Mawuse, media
coordinator of Ibis West Africa, a Danish International,
non-governmental organisation (NGO), operating in Ghana has
identified child betrothal, early marriage and child labour
as the main problems confronting education of the girl-child
in the Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba districts.
He said the people in those areas practiced these and other
negative culture, which had harmful effects on formal
education particularly that of the girl-child.
Mr. Mawuse, therefore, urged parents and other stakeholders
in education to collaborate with traditional authorities to
eliminate such practices.
He was speaking at Bole on Saturday when he inspected the
Ibis Projects, under the NGO's education component in the
Bole and the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba Districts.
Mr. Mawusi also used the opportunity to access the enrolment
rate of schools in the area and to find out how the NGO
could adopt measures to improve education particularly that
of the girl-child.
He said many communities in those areas lacked access to
basic education and did not have female role models to
motivate girls to go to school resulting in early marriages
of girls.
Mr. Mawusi observed that of about 80 Brifo communities in
the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba district, only 40 of them had access to
basic education while children in the remaining 40
communities walked long distances to school, which could
result in school dropout.
He said some of the schools in the two districts had no
trained teachers while other schools were also using
outdated textbooks and appealed to the Ghana Education
Service to constantly monitor textbooks being used in the
rural schools. Mr. Mawuse appealed to Parent-Teacher
Associations, School Management Committees and Community
Participation Committees to work together to improve
education in the districts.
He said Ibis would continue to contribute to the development
of education in the Northern part of Ghana.
GNA
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