Ghana: Gov't Charged to Introduce Policy for Girl Child Education

[Harold Schiffman]

Gov't Charged to Introduce Policy for Girl Child Education

Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) NEWS 9 July 2007

By Edmond Gyebi
Tamale

A SENIOR Citizen and former National Secretary of the Northern
People's Party now New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Ziblim Abu
Eddy-Cockra has charged the government to institute an immediate
policy that would provide free scholarships for all female students in
Ghana up to tertiary level.

He said, "Promotion of girl child education has been prioritized by
several governments since independence but they all failed due to lack
of good planning and policies".

According to Mr. Eddy-Cockra, the current government could never
balance the education disparity between males and females in Ghana
especially the three northern regions, unless a well bias policy was
formulated and enforced to push more girls into school.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle after a get
together organized by the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (RCC)
on the Republic Day in Tamale, the former NPP National Secretary said,
though government was making impressive moves towards the promotion of
girl child education, there was still the need to fill the various
potholes that were impeding its success. The occasion was to honour
some senior citizens in the Northern Region through whose efforts,
commitments and contributions Ghana has come this far. Mr. Eddy-Cockra
also a former Senior Technical Officer of the Ministry of Food and
Agriculture (MoFA) northern region, expressed grave concern about the
highly low educational standards among Ghanaian women with special
reference to those in the north.

Meanwhile, only 14% of women in the Northern Region can read, speak
and understand English language better against 34% of men, as
documented in the Ghana Demographic and Health Survey 2003. The about
84 year old Senior Citizen was of the view that Ghana could
development swiftly if women who constitute the majority of the human
resource base were educated and empowered to contribute their quotas
to the economy. He observed that if women were empowered and allowed
reputable national offices all the mischievous conducts in most public
sectors especially bribery and corruption would drastically minimize,
since they (women) were very cautious in handling positions.

On the other hand, Mr. Eddy-Cockra implored the government to
establish what he termed "Technical Universities" to afford chances to
SSS students who fell below the required university grades. He
indicated that students who fell below university requirements every
academic year were far more than the qualified ones, hence the need
for the establishment of such universities to boost Ghana's
technological advancement.



 http://allafrica.com/stories/200707091582.html


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