NGO: Make education priority in northern Ghana

A civil society organisation in education in the three Northern regions has appealed to President John Evans Atta Mills to use education to tackle the development challenges facing northern Ghana.

The NGO, Northern Network for Education Development (NNED), said although the President and the NDC party had shown commitment to provide quality education to all Ghanaians, it wished to remind them that, “the development challenges facing the three northern regions are not only too many but continue to get complex”.

“These challenges however can be overcome if you seriously prioritise education having been convinced that only a well-informed, capable and willing Northerner can help address the chieftaincy conflicts, environmental degradation, extreme poverty and migration of the youth to the south”.

These were contained in a press statement jointly signed and issued in Tamale on Friday by Mr Musah Jawula and Mr Eric Duorinaah, Chairman and Coordinator respectively of the NGO.

The statement said: “We are aware of the manifesto pledges of the NDC, among which were the improvement of the service conditions of teachers, revision of the educational reform and the capitation grant to reflect current economic trends”.

The NNED appealed to President Mills to initiate actions that would among other things, emphasis equity in the distribution of education resources and ensure that these resources got to the northern schools.

It also asked the government to computerise the placement and deployment of trained teachers, institute at least a 30 per cent hardship allowance for all teachers in the deprived districts, and review the capitation grant from GH¢3.00 to GH¢ 10.00 for the 2009 fiscal year and institute a threshold for all the deprived schools in the north.

The NNED pledged to work in concert with the Education Ministry on policies and strategies that would promote quality education for all children saying: “We would present our inputs on educational issues to the sector ministry as and when necessary”.