EDUCATION CLINIC FOR 113 JHS GIRLS (PAGE 11, SEPT 8, 2010)

A FOUR-DAY Annual Girls Education Clinic on the theme, “empowering girls for effective leadership,” has taken place in Tamale in the Northern Region with 113 junior high school (JHS) girls from eight districts of the Northern and Brong Ahafo regions participating.
The programme was aimed, among other things, to increase school survival and achievement rates among girls by offering them the opportunity to develop the virtues of self-confidence and assertiveness through socialisation and interaction with their respective peers.
The girls made a passionate appeal to parents, guardians and traditional authorities to find ways of halting the alarming rate of early marriages among girls in the districts.
They equally stressed the need for stakeholders in the education of girls to draw up effective education campaign programmes to help change the attitudes and mindsets of parents who force their girls into early marriages, preventing them from continuing their education.
The girls, who were from JHSs in the Asunafo South and Tano South districts of the Brong Ahafo region, East Gonja, Kpandai, Sawla-Kalba-Tuna, Gushiegu, Karaga and Bole, made the appeal through the Daily Graphic in Tamale.
The education clinic was organised by Ibis Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) with support from the Ghana Education Service (GES).
One of the girls, Mavis Alhassan, 14, who is currently in JHS 1at the Sawla Girls Model School, noted that the issue of forced marriages was rampant in the Sawla-Kalba-Tuna District.
According to her, some girls in the district had dropped out of school because they were allegedly forced into early marriages through no fault of theirs.
“If I am introduced to such forced marriage, I would resist because if I marry at this stage, it is bad and it would ruin my future; infact how can a girl at my age marry an old man”, she questioned.
The Ibis Programme Director of Education, Mr Zakaria Sulemana, stated that “we have countless examples of very brilliant boys and girls who unfortunately had to abandon school because they did not have the necessary skills and attitudes to enable them to fight the bad influences of life”.
The director further indicated that his outfit cherished education of girls because they know an educated woman was an asset to her family, community and to the whole country and that was why they always looked for innovative strategies for making girls go to school and remain there and endeavour to complete the programme.
The Regional Desk Officer for NGOs at the GES, Mr Dramani Dari, noted that it was important for NGOs to support the GES in its girls’ education clinic programme since the GES was constrained by lack of funding.