PUT PREMIUM ON GIRL CHILD EDUCATION

THE FOUNDER and Managing Director of the Tamale Girls International School Complex, Mr. Albert Atutiga has encouraged parents and traditional authorities to put premium on the education of their female children in order to enhance Ghana’s quest of ensuring gender equality and equal opportunities for women in society.

According to Mr. Atutiga, who is the first private man to establish Girls School Complex from Primary to Senior High in the whole of the three Northern Regions, even though Ghana was making some significant gains in the promotion of girl child education, there was still the need for all stakeholders to complement the efforts.

He was speaking to told Savannahnews in an exclusive interview at his office in Tamale during his last Birthday Celebration which is yearly observed by his school as “The Founder’s Day”.

Mr. Albert Atutiga who is also the Founder of the Tamale Boys International Senior High School started his girls’ school in 1997 with just 40 students but now has a student population of about 700 with females constituting the larger proportion of over 75%. But he told the blogger that the enrollment or admission into his school had been constraint by the inadequate classrooms and dormitory accommodation, resulting from the smaller size of the current school land.

He however hinted that the Tamale Girls and Boys International School Complex had already acquired a vast land at the outskirt of the Tamale Metropolis where he had almost finished developing it with all the necessary structures.

The School Authorities according to him were also developing another campus in Wa, the capital of the Upper West Region to satisfy the needs of the large number of girls who travel all the way down to Tamale for education, and to also encourage parents who previously could not afford paying School fees, dormitory/hostel fees and feeding of their wards to now send their children to school without any difficulties.

Mr. Albert Atutiga who is also the Founder of the Ghana Institute of Advance Education in Tamale and Chief Executive Officer of both Atutiga Mixed Farms and Atutiga Lodge Hotel all in Tamale, also acknowledged the importance of boy child education in ensuring quality human resource base of the country. But he still argued that more efforts, attention and resources aught to be committed to the development of girl child education in order to bring women at par with their male counterparts at all levels of the economy.

At the moment, it is estimated that over 65% of women in Northern Region cannot read, write or speak the English language as against 68% or more men who can read, write and speak the language.

That notwithstanding, reports have also shown that more girls are still out of school than boys, and that more girls drop out of school than boys in the northern region mostly on the grounds of running away to the south of Ghana to do menial jobs (Kayaye), going into early/force marriage or sent into fosterage.

However, Mr. Albert Atutiga described as unacceptable for any parent to deny his or her child the right to education and thus called for governmental policy that would encourage more girls to enroll in school.

Meanwhile, the Celebration of the Founder’s Day saw the students of the Tamale Girls International School Complex from different tribal groupings displaying their cultural heritage, inter tribal football competition and other educative programmes.