56,000 girls out of school in Central Region

Cape Coast, Oct.12, GNA - A survey by the Ghana Education Service (GES) indicates that 56,596 girls between the ages of six and 11 in the Central Region are out of school by April this year.

Mrs Justina Torjagbo Central Regional Director of Education who disclosed this said the number was high and stressed the need for more interventions such as identifying areas and communities where such problems were prevalent to meet and counsel parents to address the issue.

Mrs Torjagbo, was speaking at the launching of communication materials such as posters, brochures and stickers with inscriptions "send your girl child to school", to promote girl child education in the region, at Cape Coast on Tuesday.

She said although establishment of the Girl Education Unit had made 'great improvement' in terms of advocacy and community mobilization, a lot more needed to be done to attain gender parity in education.

Mrs Torjagbo commended district girls' education officers for working hard to mobilize more girls in their communities into the classrooms but noted that although this had been successful they needed to work harder to get the rest in school by the end of the year. She therefore, urged stakeholders to assist to ensure that provision of the communication materials, by UNICEF in collaboration with the Girls' Education Unit of the GES made the desired impact.