By: Murtala Issah
STAR Ghana Foundation has urged stakeholders in education to review strategies used in addressing girl child education in Ghana.
The Executive Director of Star Ghana Foundation, Ibrahim Tanko-Amidu at a forum in Tamale, said there is the need to develop strategies that are relevant to the times to ensure maximum benefit to beneficiaries of such strategies.
Efforts to promote quality education for girls continues to be challenged by avoidable barriers, such as poverty, early marriage and poor school infrastructure. These challenges have conspired to leave nearly a quarter of a million girls aged 6 to 14 out of school in Ghana.
The Northern region alone has more than seventy three thousand girls who have never seen the four walls of a classroom.
This development persists, despite numerous interventions from government and its development partners to ensure that all girls are enrolled in school.
These challenges further impacts efforts to achieve sustainable development goal four, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030.
To address these challenges, STAR-Ghana Foundation (SGF) through its Gender Rights and Empowerment Programme (G-REP), organised a stakeholders forum for the northern sector in Tamale to brainstorm and share ideas on strategies for girls education in the area.
Addressing the media at the forum in Tamale, the Executive Director for Star Ghana, Mr. Tanko-Amidu called for a second look at current strategies to make education work for girls.
“The issue does not lend itself to one cause, it is the interplay between of a number of issues. Poverty is one issue, but so are traditional and religious beliefs and practices that effect girls education, ” he observed.
Mr. Tanko-Amidu said though enrollment has improved, “it is the retention across from primary to Junior high to SHS and their performance, that is the problem. ” He called for efforts to ensure retention and performance of girls in school.
