More pupils fail in Mathematics in N/R

Mathematics remains a major headache to school pupils as more than half of the candidates, who sat Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) in the Northern Region this year, failed in the subject.

Out of a total of 22,979 candidates, who sat Mathematics during the 2012 BECE, representing the record of 17 districts of the region, only 9,505 passed, leaving the rest (over 12,000) not to be placed in Senior High Schools (SHS).

In other core subjects such as Integrated Science, and English Language written by the same number (22,979) of candidates, 9,696, and 10,262 candidates respectively passed in both subjects with over 12,000 again failing and without being placed in SHS.

Mr Amoafo Acheampong, Northern Regional Statistics and Examinations Officer of the Ghana Education Service (GES) announced this when he made a presentation on the performance of pupils in the BECE in the region at a Regional Advocacy/Review Forum on Education in Tamale on Thursday.

The forum was organized by CARE International, through a project dubbed: “Partnership for Accountable Governance in Education (PAGE)” in conjunction with the GES.

It brought together stakeholders from PAGE project districts to deliberate on key challenges and identify existing opportunities that could be harnessed to improve quality education delivery at the basic level in the region.

The PAGE project seeks to improve pupils’ achievement at the basic level through strengthened education governance and supervision and it is being implemented in nine districts in the region including Central Gonja, Nanumba North, Saboba, Chereponi and Bunkpurugu-Yunyo.

Mr Acheampong said the situation with the elective subjects was also not encouraging, adding the average performance of the region for 2011 stood at 41.6 per cent while that of 2012 was 41.1 per cent.

He, however, indicated that some districts had recorded improvement over their previous performances whilst others declined.

For instance, Nanumba North recorded 80 per cent in 2012 as against 38 per cent in 2011, whiles Zabzugu/Tatale dropped from 90 per cent in 2011 to 58 per cent in 2012.

He attributed the low performance to inadequate and ineffective supervision, non participation of community members in school management, teacher absenteeism, loss of contact hours, classroom management, and teacher deployment.

He said given the strategies and interventions adopted by government and other stakeholders, there was the need for a concerted effort by all to achieve the desired quality education.

Mr Paul Apanga, Acting Northern Regional Director of GES called on all stakeholders to be actively involved in the management of schools to achieve quality.

Mr Alex Agbleada, Programme Officer of CARE International elaborated on the PAGE project, saying it offered training as well as provided resources to circuit supervisors and head-teachers to enhance supervision and monitoring of schools.