Upper West Region holds education forum

Stakeholders in education in the Upper West Region have expressed disappointment at the poor performance of students in examinations in recent times.

Giving comparative analysis of the performance of the region in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), the stakeholders said it painted a very gloomy picture as the results kept on worsening each year as per the available statistics.

For instance, the region recorded 47.5 per cent pass in the BECE in 2011, which declined to 46.1 per cent in 2012 and further dropped to 40.9 per cent in 2013.

That apart, the UNICEF Country Report also indicated that almost 20,000 children of primary school age in the region were not in school.

The implications of those two scenarios alone, the stakeholders noted, would affect education delivery efforts and future growth and development if not quickly addressed.

Alhaji Amidu Sulemana, Upper West Regional Minister, said as part of Government’s commitment to quality education in Ghana, more than five billion Ghana cedis was allocated to the education sector in the 2014 Budget.

He said the Government had also committed 14 million Ghana cedis as subsidy for the BECE this year, while its programme on distribution of free school uniforms and textbooks was still ongoing.

He said construction of senior high schools across Ghana was also ongoing and plans were underway to implement a progressive free secondary education, starting 2015.

Alhaji Sulemana said those interventions showed government’s commitment to help ease the burden on parents, and also increase quality at all levels of education as part of the “Better Ghana Agenda”.

He encouraged community members to take advantage of those initiatives and improve on education to help reduce poverty.

Alhaji Sulemana said despite Government’s massive injection of both human and material resources, as well as the contribution of district assemblies and development partners to the education sector, especially at the basic level, the much desired results continued to be dwindling on yearly basis.

“It is an undeniable fact that we now have better school infrastructure, better teaching and learning materials and better qualified and motivated teachers than we could boast of sometime ago.

“What could, therefore, be the reason for the continued downwards trend in the performance of our children as compared to others in the rest of Ghana? We here have to find the answers and quickly too before the region is left behind,” Alhaji Sulemana said.