The lack of trained teachers has been identified as one of the major causes of fallen standards of education in the Upper East Region.
Mr Nicholas N Nayembil, a retired educationist, said this when he presented a Paper on the topic, "Upper East Region - A Historical
Perspective" during the just-ended 50th anniversary celebrations of the Region in Bolgatanga.
"The Upper East Region has been experiencing shortage of teachers since the 1970's", the retired educationist said.
He said the Region, with nine Districts and a large number of schools, had only two teacher training colleges that trained only a few teachers.
He said the Region had 563 public Kindergarten schools and 79 private Kindergarten schools, 585 public Primary Schools and 81 Private primary schools, 298 public Junior High Schools and 12
private Junior High Schools.
The Region, he noted, also had 21 Senior High Schools and two private Senior High Schools, two public teacher training colleges, four public vocational schools and seven private vocational
schools.
The Region also had one University and one Polytechnic, he added.
Mr Nayembil said the situation had, however, improved recently in only five Districts as compared to the past, and gave the breakdown of those improved Districts as Bawku Municipal, 62 per cent, Bawku West 69 per cent, Bolgatanga Municipal 59 per cent and Kassena Nankana West 51 per cent.
The rest of the Districts, he noted, were still grappling with the lack of trained teachers and said Bongo had only 45 per cent trained
teachers, Builsa 45 per cent, Talensi Nabdam 46 per cent and Garu Tempane District 48 per cent.
He stressed the need for Government to build more teacher training colleges to train more teachers to overcome the problem of shortage of trained teachers in the Region.
He pointed out that education was one of the major tools that could be used to reduce poverty in the Region and therefore it was very crucial that Government paid more attention to the education sector in the Region.
He said education was the best legacy parents could bequeath to their children, and entreated parents in the Region to pay special attention to the educational needs of their children.