Over 66,520 males under age 15 in Upper East are out of school

Available data from the Ghana National Household Registry(GNHR) has revealed that about 66,520 male children between the ages from 4-15 years representing 19 percent to 57 percent of children in the Upper East Region are not in school.

This revelation was made during a Data Dissemination Workshop held in Bolgatanga on Monday on the Household Registration Exercise that was conducted by the GNHR in the region in 2018 with funding support of the World Bank.

The National Coordinator of the GNHR, Dr Prosper Larri who shared the findings of data on the “Analysis of UE Data –Wayward of GNHR”, also stated that the data points out that 1,471 of Children with Disabilities representing 37 percent of children in the region are not also in School.

Whilst also quoting from the National Household Registration Data that the nearest school in the region was an average of 24 minutes away from home.

Dr Larri added that the data that was conducted in 2018 in the region also revealed that there were about 36, 135 Persons With Disabilities representing 3.4 percent of the population of the region.

He stated that out of the 184, 125 households that were enumerated , 58 percent of the household were being male headed.

The National Coordinator who stressed that the data collection which was very comprehensive and covered various sectors including education, health, agriculture among others were intended to help policy makers in the decision making process of the country as well as serve a yardstick for the implementation of the social intervention policies.

He said already certain institutions such as the Ghana School Feeding Programme, the National Health Insurance, the Capitation Grants , NGOs among others had started leveraging on the GNHR data for the implementation of their programmes.

Dr Charles Kesse , a representative from the Office of the Local Government Service entreated the Municipal and District Chief Executives who were at the programme with their planners to make good use of the data to help fast-track development in their respective areas.

The Upper East Regional Minister , Madam Tangoba Abayage applauded the staff of the GNHR for carrying out the exercise and the World Bank and the other development partners for proving funding support for the exercise.

She expressed the optimism that the data would serve us a weapon for the region to help fight poverty which so endemic in the area and also thanked the traditional rulers and other opinion leaders in the region for cooperating with the GNHR to conduct the exercise.

The Data Dissemination Workshop attracted stakeholders including the 15 Municipal and District Chief Executives, Municipal and District Planners, Non-Government Organizations, the Academia , staff from the Gender , Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) and the Media.