By Philip Tengzu
Piree, (UW/R), July 28, GNA – Children in Kaangu, a farming community in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, trek about 18 kilometres (km) daily to access Junior High Education in Sombo, the only nearest community in the area with a Junior High School (JHS).
The children who could not endure the ordeal of trekking the long distance gave up on education and resorted to other activities, mostly farming or travelling to southern Ghana to engage in illegal mining.
The girls, who dropped out of school after primary six ended up marrying, but soon found themselves back at their fathers’ homes as they were too young to marry and could not stay in their marital homes.
Mr Camillus Tatuara, the Assembly Member of the Sombo East Electoral area, who made this known during an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Piree, said the situation was similar to the Piree community, which was about 4km from Sombo, where the children could access JHS.
He said while education was deemed to be a right of every Ghanaian child, it was not so for children in Kaangu and Piree communities, where children had to go through a grave ordeal to access JHS education.
“The issue of a JHS is a big worry to us. There is no JHS here apart from Sombo. After primary school, the children at Kaangu and Piree must go to Sombo for the JHS but the distance from Piree to Sombo is about 4kms and from Kaangu to Piree is also about 5kms.
But the children at Kaangu must come and pass Piree before going to Sombo, so, in all a child from Kaangu must walk about 18 Km in and out every day to Sombo for the JHS and those at Piree must also walk about 8Km in and out every day”, he said
Mr Tatuara explained that children had to commute and cover these distances daily for three years and those of them whose parents could not buy bicycles for their wards, found it challenging to attend JHS.
Madam Matilda Dakpaanaa, a resident of the Piree community, said aside from the distance that discouraged some girls in the two communities from continuing with their education at the JHS, the lack of furniture in the primary school classrooms also contributed to the dropout among the girls in the communities.
She said when some of the girls got to primary five and six, they found themselves maturing and would not like to sit on the bare floor to study, a situation that compelled the girls to either escape to southern Ghana for head porter jobs or got married.
“So, you see that many girls at ages of 14, 15 and 16 are getting married and such girls are not able to sit in their husbands’ homes because they are too young to marry, they come back to their fathers’ homes to stay, but already their education is ended,” she explained.
Madam Dakpaanaa added that some of the girls who persevered to attend the JHS in Sombo also ended up getting pregnant for gambling their lives with sex at Sombo.
The residents, therefore, appealed to the government through the Nadowli-Kaleo District Assembly to provide the community with a JHS.
Goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enjoins member states that were signatories to the goals to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
Target 4.1 of the Goal required that “By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes”.
However, achieving this target by the government of Ghana would be a mirage if the government did not improve access to basic education in rural communities including Kaangu and Piree communities.
GNA