By Joyce Kantam Kolamong
50 teenage mothers at Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District of the Northern region were supported to return to school after dropping out to have children.
The Ghana Education Service – ActionAid Ghana collaboration also supported the girls with basic school needs and psycho-social counseling to whip up their interest to stay in school.
The Programmes Manager for ActionAid Ghana, Beatrice Biije, made this known at a Review Meeting of the GES Re-Entry policy in Tamale.
Joyce Kantam Kolamong reports that the Re-Entry Policy seeks to prevent pregnancy among school girls, but, if the pregnancy occurs, the girls are supported to return to school.
It is estimated that about 100,000 girls get pregnant every year and just about 300 of them return to school.
The Northern region recorded about 43,533 teenage pregnancies among school girls between the ages of 12 and 18 years in the last four years, out of which a handful of them went back to school.
The challenges of girls’ re-entry into school have largely been attributed to lack of economic support, misconceptions about teenage pregnancy and infrastructure deficits.
Programmes Manager for Action Aid Ghana, Beatrice Biije, commended the Back to School initiative stressing that but for the intervention; a lot of teenage mothers and pregnant girls will be out of school.
A beneficiary of ActionAid Ghana’s Back to school campaign, Alice N-Yelbi, was full of praise to the NGO for their support. Miss Alice is now a second-year student at Bimbilla College of Education. She was 14 years old in Junior High School when she got pregnant. In narrating the ordeal, Alice spoke of how ActionAid Ghana came to her rescue.
About 10,800 girls have returned to school between 2018 and 2020, since the launch of the Re-entry Policy.
