Inadequate furniture is increasingly becoming a major hindrance to accessing good quality education in some basic schools in the Jirapa municipality of the Upper West Region.
This is because more than 10,000 pupils in the municipality are compelled to study on the bare floor due to the lack of furniture in their classrooms.
The Jirapa Municipal Director of Education, John Baptist Kulah, disclosed this at a meeting organized by ProNet North Ghana, a non-governmental organization to award some 340 facilitators and community-based oversight committee members of the “Strategic Approaches to Girls Education (STAGE)” project in Jirapa.
He explained that “out of the total number of 24,686 pupils enrolled from KG to Junior High Schools in the municipality, 10,080 of them attend school without furniture“.
According to the Director, 2,983 children at the KG level have no furniture with a whopping number of 6,136 at the primary level suffering the same fate, while 961 are at the JHS level.
Mr. John Baptist Kulah bemoaned the situation, calling on the government to urgently address it.
“This situation is not and cannot be the best for any effective teaching and learning”.
The Country Director of ProNet North Ghana, Martin Dery, addressing the beneficiaries revealed that 950 out-of-school girls have successfully been enrolled into the formal school system.
He called on parents to take a keen interest in the education of their girls to make them responsible citizens in the future.
While thanking them for their collective role in implementing the “STAGE” project, Mr. Martin Dery appealed to the beneficiaries to continue to be dedicated to the project and ensure that none of the girls drops out of school. Each of the 340 beneficiaries received a certificate and cash amounts.
The Strategic Approaches to Girls Education(STAGE) project is a five-year project which is aimed at ensuring that girls between 10 and 14 who are out of school get the opportunity to be enrolled. It also provides skills training and startup capital to some girls who wish to learn a trade.
The project is funded by DFID with world education Ghana as the lead consortium.
