Project to improve girls’ education launched

Stakeholders in education at a Town Hall meeting in Accra have generated community awareness on the need to empower females in secondary education in Ghana.

They believe there are a lot of gaps which affect the underperformance and underrepresentation of females in accessing Senior High Schools which needs urgent attention.

The town hall meeting also saw the launch of the Leading Girls’ Learning Program Pilot for 2022/2023 which aims at finding a lasting improvement in girls learning and supporting females in the teaching profession.

For the stakeholders, the Leading Girls’ Learning Program will go a long way to address female underrepresentation and underperformance in SHS. They touched on the role of Guidance and Counselling which needs to be reviewed with more effective support in study skills careers and advice and the lack of gender-inclusive policies in schools. They believe the project after implementation will address such issues.

The Leading Girls’ Learning Program which is a five-year project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID with the Institute of Teacher Education and Development, INTED as the implementing Agency. The program will be implemented in Ghana and Sierra Leone.

Under the five-year project titled “Transforming into Membership-Based Organisation to Impact Educators and Marginalized Youths across West Africa, INTED will pilot and expand multiple professional development programs to improve quality education delivered in Ghana and Sierra Leone purposed for young people in lower-income communities. The Education Office Director at USAID Ghana, Rasheena Reid said USAID will continue to support efforts in addressing educational inequalities affecting females.

Speaking during the meeting, a Board Chairman of Transforming Teaching and Learning, T-TEL Professor Jophus Anamoah Mensah noted that there is limited evidence that schools have put in place measures to address gender inclusion issues and this is constraining the opportunity for students to achieve their potential.

"Schools are overly focused on content knowledge and not engaging students develop skills for the world of work,” he stressed.

INTED’s Executive Director Kwabena Amoporful said INTED remains steadfast in its mission of quality education to provide equitable opportunities for all youth. He said addressing gender inequality is also the main focus of the project which will go a long way to benefit females.

Across all the programs a target of more than 4000 teachers and heads in 184 schools will receive training which the project expects to impact 9200 youths over the five-year period. The project will include Monitoring Evaluation and a learning component that will support beneficiaries.