Girl child education still low, Minister

Tema (Greater Accra), 15 March '99 -

Tema (Greater Accra), 15 March '99 - Mr Kwabena Kyereh, Deputy Minister for Education said on Friday that there is still a big gap between boys and girls education in the area of admission, enrolment and retention rates. He said the gaps grow wider, especially in the Northern sector of the country, the gap is larger, especially in the northern sector of the country and in the commercial centres of the south, a situation which is at variance with the government's commitment to provide education for all by the year 2000. Mr Kyereh was speaking at the commissioning of the Corpus Christ Catholic schools complex, comprising of a primary, junior and senior secondary schools, built by the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) at the cost of 1.2 billion cedis at community 18, Tema. The TDC last week formally handed over the school complex to the Catholic church to run in view of the church's good educational policies. Mr Kyereh stressed the need to pay special attention to girl child education, adding that "we will make better wives or traders out of these children if we send them to school". Mr Ebenezer T. Ayi-Bonte, Managing Director of TDC, said the educational facility is meant to help the people of community 18 and the surrounding newly developed areas to have easy access to good education for their children. He said apart from the TDC, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is the only estate developer which has attached schools to its housing projects at communities 13 and three in Tema, and at Adenta. The Managing Director said the TDC is planning to build another school at community 20 to take care of the spillage from surrounding communities. The Reverend Sister Beatrice Gbedemah, headmistress of the school said the school has about about 300 pupils. The SSS currently offers general arts and business studies and plans are advanced to introduce general sciences in the near future.