Girls Education Promotion Yields Positive Results

The Girls’ Education Promotion Programme of the United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) which seeks to encourage girls to go to school by giving them bicycles, is yielding positive results.

Figures at the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Savelugu-Nanton District in the Northern Region indicate that the Gender Parity Index (GPI) in the district, for instance, has increased from 0.7 to the current figure of 0.89 and that the Gross Enrolment rate among girls is also currently around 90 per cent.

The UNICEF programme which started in 2002 is to help retain girls in school to at least complete junior high school.

At a ceremony to donate 472 bicycles valued at GH¢54,280 to girls at Savelugu to help them attend school, the Education Officer of the UNICEF, Northern Ghana, Mr Biikook Konlan, said the achievement was due to effective monitoring mechanisms put in place by UNICEF and the GES to make the programme a success.

He explained that education was the only tool to fight poverty and entreated parents to help maintain the bicycles to help the beneficiaries to go to school always.

He stressed the need for parents not to use the bicycles at the expense of promoting the education of their daughters.

Mr Konlan expressed the hope that the use of the bicycles would help the beneficiaries to improve their academic performance.

The UNICEF Officer impressed on the parents, the need for them to avoid pushing their girls into early marriages and equally urged the beneficiary girls to desist from engaging in premarital sex that could ruin their future.

“The results of these social vices are teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, and lack of education; please, use your time profitably,” Mr Konlan urged.

The District Director of Education, Madam Adriana Kandilige, expressed regret that many girls in the district were not in school because of poverty, early marriages and teenage pregnancies among other factors.

She stressed that parents must make efforts to send their daughters to school and ensure that they attained the highest education their abilities could guarantee.

Madam Kandilige commended the UNICEF, World Vision International and other partners in education delivery for their immense contribution to improving education in the district.

The beneficiaries thanked the donors for the gesture and promised to work hard to improve their academic work.