GES/NORSAAC assess gender friendly leadership structures

NORSAAC, a local Non-governmental Organisation operating in the Northern Region, has successfully assessed the Ghana Education Service (GES) gender friendly leadership structure run at second cycle schools.

The programme, implemented in 2015, was assessed at a learning event which was aimed at assessing the success, gaps and limitations of the gender friendly leadership structure.

It brought together officials of GES, Headmasters, teachers and students from selected senior high schools within the Northern, Savannah and North East Regions.

NORSAAC and Action-Aid, after implementing the programme named the Young Female Parliamentarian, which ran in 18 senior high schools in the Northern Region realised that, there were inconsistencies in female representation in senior high schools.

This led to a review with headmasters and District Directors of Education, who confirmed that there was no uniform structure in student leadership at the senior high level, which led to the adoption of the gender friendly structure, where girls could contest the positions of school prefects.

Thirty-nine schools out of 59 that adopted the structure were monitored through data collection, which showed that, only five out of the 39 selected schools had the structure in place where leadership positions and processes were open to both sexes without segregation.

The analysis showed that, 13 percent of schools that adopted the structure implemented it, yet, no female occupied the highest position such as Senior Prefect in these schools.

Alhaji Mohammed Seidu Issah Abah, the Head of Human Resource Unit at the Northern Regional Education Office, said there were emphasis on the representation of females in student leadership due to the importance attached to implementing affirmative action bill at all levels.

He said the gender friendly structure gave girls equal opportunities to be part of leadership, to train them adequately for taking up higher political and other leadership roles in future.

Madam Nancy Yeri, the Project Officer for the Gender and Governance Unit of NORSAAC, said the Northern Region had been pushing for the gender friendly structure, and indicated that the GES considered spreading it across the country soon.

She said it was necessary for the structure to be in full scale in senior high schools in the Northern Region, where it began, to enhance its implementation and sustainability in other regions.