Educational performance still poor N/R

Tamale, May 03, GNA - Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Northern Regional Minister has expressed concern that despite the massive capital and infrastructural interventions in educational in the region, enrolment continues to be low and supervision poor.

He said the teacher-pupil ratio was highly undesirable and indiscipline among teachers had worsened with poor and inadequate educational infrastructure despite injection of funds from the Getfund. Alhaji Idris brought these to light in Tamale on Wednesday during the opening of a three-day workshop and first ever Northern Regional educational sector annual review meeting.

The workshop is aimed at assessing education development in the region over the years with the view to evolving strategies and plans to address the problems associated with education.

The Ghana Education Service organised the forum with sponsorship from Japan International Development Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

District Chief Executives (DCE), NGOs and District Directors of Education from all the eighteen districts of the region, as well as other stakeholders are attending the workshop.

Alhaji Idris noted the myriad of problems facing education in the country and said it would require a multi-dimensional approach to propel education in the region to higher levels. He therefore called on all stakeholders in education to come out with useful and realistic recommendations for implementation to address these problems.

The Minister commended the efforts of the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for teaming up with the districts to supplement government's efforts at providing quality education in the region.

Alhaji Iddrisu Adam, Deputy Northern Regional Director of Education, urged the district education offices to endeavour to meet the target of the new education reform He explained that the reform was a process of decentralising the delivery of education, which put a lot of responsibilities on the personnel in the directorate at the local levels.

He said District Education Offices under the District Assemblies, would be responsible for the planning, financial management, administration, monitoring the programme performance and human resource management at the grassroots.

Alhaji Adam said the primary enrolment currently stood at 344,974 as against the estimated population of 372,285 of six to eleven year-old children in the region, explaining that about 27,311 children in those years bracket were still not in schools.

He stressed that the region had the potential to blaze the trail of high education development "if at all actors, stakeholders and collaborative partners in education strategise appropriately for a combined effect". 03 May 07