Basic School Girls In The North Worried Over Educational Logistics

It is undeniably a fact that quality education forms the bedrock for the economic development of every developing nation in the world including Ghana. However, in a situation whereby the quality of education is compromised, the end result is poor academic performances and increasing rate of school dropouts who most likely would become social miscreants in future.

A select number of forty-five (45) basic school girls from different clubs including nine (9) patrons and three (3) female models from three districts in the three regions of the North – Upper West, Upper East and Northern who met for a 3-day conference of girls’ clubs organized by Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) in Tamale, have expressed grievous concerns over the lack of important basic learning facilities in their schools.  

Some of the critical issues raised during discussions by the girls included lack of or insufficient textbooks, lack of library and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) facilities, inadequate teachers and lack of female teachers to serve as role models to them, absence of electricity to promote studies in the night, among others.

These issues add up to similar ones raised at an education policy dialogue workshop on teacher deployment organized by the same non-governmental organization in Tamale early this year. 

Participants held the view at that particular workshop that the lack of social amenities including electricity, internet facilities, descent accommodation, safe drinking water, means of transport, tarred roads among others in rural areas, were the reasons why teachers refused postings to such places. They argued that even if teachers who were posted to rural areas were paid so well, the non-availability of such facilities would not motivate some of them to accept postings to village schools.

They also observed that most Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were paying lip service to teacher trainee education with regards to scholarships given to interested persons who applied for sponsorship every year. They noted that whereas some MMDAs could pay as much as GH¢200.00 to a student per each academic year as scholarship package, others paid as little as GH¢40.00 or GH¢50.00 which was woefully inadequate and did not motivate such students to stay in the district to teach after completion. 

Organized by the Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) in collaboration with the Net Organisation for Youth Empowerment and Development (NOYED-Ghana) and partners with sponsorship from United Kingdom based Comic Relief, the three-day girls’ conference brought together participants from three districts including Jirapa, Talensi-Nabdam and West Mamprusi where VSO was implementing a five-year project dubbed “Tackling Education Needs Inclusively (TENI)”. 

Under the theme: “Promoting girls’ retention in school through sharing of best practices”, the conference of girls’ clubs was organized as a demonstration of VSO’s commitment to share the little gains it was making at the community level with regards to the implementation of TENI. 

It also aimed at building the confidence and the capacity of the girl-child to be able to speak in public and ultimately to groom them to be responsible future leaders.

So far, monitoring in all aforementioned districts revealed that most of the clubs had been engaged in dynamic and interactive activities to address major topics such as the importance of girls’ education, avoiding pre-marital sex, HIV/AIDS, practicing personal hygiene and how to participate effectively in classroom learning.

Club participation in these districts had also increased from 2,800 members in the last two years to about 8,023 members, as in the West Mamprusi District for instance; the number of functioning clubs had risen significantly from 10 initially to 110.  

Meanwhile, the participants called on government and non-governmental organizations that have the interest in female education, to come to the aid of their schools with learning materials such as story books and ICT facilities to enable them catch-up with the well endowed schools in the cities. 

They also appealed to the government to immediately post more female teachers to less endowed basic schools in the country particularly those in Northern Ghana so that they could serve as role models and counselors to them.