Naba Sigri Bewong, Paramount Chief of the Sekoti Traditional Area, has said the challenges confronting education cannot be solved by any government other than the people themselves.
Naba Sigri Bewong said children as young as eight years worked at “galamsey” sites to mine for gold when they should have been in the classroom learning whilst young girls and boys drop out of school to serve as bar attendants and domestic servants in the cities.
He said migration of young children especially girls to the south during vacation resulted in high rates of teenage pregnancies which invariably resulted in high drop out rates among girls in the area.
Naba Sigri Bewong was speaking at the annual “Tenglebre” Festival of his traditional area on the theme “Education: the Bedrock for National Development Nabdams send your children to school.”
He appealed to the government to connect electricity to all basic schools in the area to promote effective Information and communication Technology (ICT) teaching and learning because it was vital for acquiring knowledge.
Naba Sigri Bewong said since education was an important tool for the development of any nation, efforts should be made to address the numerous problems that confronted it to enable children achieve maximum education and not drop out.
Citing the only Senior Secondary school in the district, the chief said lack of boarding facilities, a dinning hall, a kitchen and work on a transformer to boost electrification of the school had come to a stand still in spite of follow ups by the school’s authorities.
He said “these were some of the issues that precipitated the unrest in the school and the provision of such amenities will go a long way to avoid such agitations”.
Naba Sigri Bewong thanked the government for the many development projects especially linking some parts of the area to the National Grid and said efforts should be made to cover more areas.
He also appealed to the government to find a lasting solution to the rehabilitation of dams in the area to boost agricultural activities.
Mr. Mark Woyongo, the Upper East Regional Minister, assured the people of government’s pledges to develop the educational sector in the attainment of a “Better Ghana Agenda”.
He said the government would commit resources to accelerate the modernization of agriculture.