By Naa Shormei Odonkor
Koforidua, July 25, GNA – Mr Felix K. Asare, the Eastern Regional Deputy Public Relations Officer, Ghana Education Service (GES), says the Back-to-School policy was being effectively implemented in the region.
The policy is to ensure that teenagers who got pregnant in school would continue to have access to education.
He said 156 pregnant girls and nursing teenage mothers sat for the just-ended Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), indicating the policy’s effectiveness.
However, many pregnant teenagers and nursing mothers in the region still dropped out of school due to fear of being ridiculed or stigmatised, Mr Asare told the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Tuesday.
He said sensitisation on the Back-to-School Policy must continue to educate teenagers, parents and society on the importance of returning to school during pregnancy and after childbirth.
Out of the 53,264 candidates who wrote the 2024 BECE, 269 candidates, comprising 135 males and 134 females, were absent, 100 were pregnant, 56 were nursing mothers and three were sick and could not write.
A 14-year-old who dropped out of school at the junior high school form one in 2023 after conception said her mother refused to take care of the baby while she was at school.
She said even when she carried her baby to the school, it had no measures in place to assist her cater for the baby, saying: “All the teachers were busy with work and could not hold the baby when I am in class.”
She said she had to leave school and forget about her dream of becoming a nurse, unfortunately.
The West African Examination Council registered a total of 569,059 students to sit for the 2024 BECE in Ghana.
The figure represented 282,645 males and 286,447 females from 19,506 participating schools countrywide, who wrote at 2,123 centres.
GNA