Elmina kids choose fishing over school

Kids in Elmina in the Central Region seem to love the shore more than the classroom, TV3 has gathered.

Most of these kids, boys, between the ages 12 and 19 run the shores fishing during hours they are expected to be learning at schools.

“I sell fish because my mother cannot afford to pay my school fees,” Paul Quansah told our correspondent when confronted.

The 12-year-old explained to TV3’s Thomas Vincent Cann that he would have wished to be in the classroom.

He said after his first year in junior high school (JHS), he had to drop out to help his parents in making money from fishing.

But most of the fishmongers at Edina claim the children are being economical with the truth as their numbers have recently doubled much to their surprise.

‘VIP’

Yaa Acheampongmaa, who stays at one of the suburbs of Elmina, says some of the children are engaged in juvenile delinquencies.

She claims in her suburb, Broni Bima, some of the boys have formed a gang called 'VIP' and have been raiding residents indiscriminately.

Yaa Acheampongmaa, a fishmonger, says most of these children do not respect their parents because of the monies they make from fishing and "other things".

A parent, Alberta Odoom, lamented how she sent her son to school but he refused. “He gets money,” she said in Fante, “and you can't control him.”

She says efforts to get her son enrolled in a school in Accra proved futile. “And I cannot beat him as a single parent,” she bemoaned.

Headteacher of the Elmina MA Primary School Mrs Dorothy Clara Mensah blamed the situation partly on the parents.

“Actually they don’t drop out,” she said about the children.

“They leave the school for about a week and come back with their parents, who plead on their behalf.”

She said some of the parents are not even aware their kids do not come to school at all.

Ms Mensah indicated that school authorities have advised parents to check on their kids from time to time in the school.

A counselling session has also been scheduled for the kids every Wednesday at the school.

She expressed worry how classes are full at the beginning of each academic year but gradually reduce as the term wears on with some not turning up at in the third term.