Community participation in educational governance and management in eight communities in four districts of the Northern Region has been enhanced through the Improving Educational Governance and Accountability (IEGA) project of RAINS.

The IEGA, a three-year project being championed by the Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS), Tamale based NGO with support from STAR-Ghana, had also re-activated district and community education oversight structures.

Mr Mohammed Saani, Project Coordinator, told the GNA in an interview in Tamale on Wednesday that the initiative was aimed at addressing the decline in quality education delivery at the basic levels.

He said through the project there had been an enhanced coordination and collaboration among Civil Society Organisations and government stakeholders in Gushegu, Karaga, West Mamprusi districts and the Savelugu/Nanton Municipality.

Mr Saani said the eight communities in these districts had helped to improve pupil/teacher ratio by supporting the recruitment and maintenance of community volunteer teachers.

Mr Saani said the project had succeeded in helping reduce the high rate of the migration of young persons, especially females in the Bulbia community in the West Mamprusi District, to southern Ghana in search of jobs.

“Through the efforts of the School Management Committees, Parent/ Teacher Associations, chiefs, opinion leaders and the Ghana Private Road Transport Union, the frequent rural-urban drift has been halted”, he said.

Mr Saani said the GPRTU had resolved to withhold or disembark any child suspected to be below the age of 18 on board their vehicles to the south for further investigations to be carried out on such children and the necessary action taken.

“So far a total of 25 children comprising 18 girls and seven boys were disembarked on a journey to southern Ghana", he said.

Mr Saani said through vigilance, another means by which some people smuggled young girls to Walewale through the use of motorbikes to board public transport to Accra had also been stopped.