The operations of illegal mining, popularly referred to as ‘galamsey’, continue to pose a significant danger to education, the Bishop of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese of the Catholic Church, Most Reverend Alfred Agyenta, has said.

He said children of school age continued to be lured into the business of illegal mining and exploited as well by the illegal miners to the detriment of their education, especially at the basic level.

He noted that many children in areas such as Bawku West, Nabdam, Talensi and other areas with gold deposits had abandoned school and have rather ventured into illegal mining, a development which would have serious consequences on the future of the children.

Forum

Bishop Agyenta was speaking at the opening of the zonal National Education Forum (NEF) for the Upper East and North-East regions in Bolgatanga, on the theme: “Transforming education for a sustainable future”.

To salvage the situation, he called for the revisiting of the free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (fCUBE) policy to encourage school-age children to be regular in school instead of engaging in acts that tended to jeopardise their future.

He stated that “as a society, we cannot lose school children to illegal mining because it would have dire consequences on the availability of the human resources for national development in future”.

Partnership

Bishop Agyenta expressed concern about the failure to honour the partnership between the government and the church, as well as other faith-based organisations in the form of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the management of educational institutions.

In light of recent developments in northern Ghana, he said it would be useful to widen the MoU to include traditional authorities to ensure that faith-based bodies had the necessary free hand to run their educational institutions without any political or any form of unnecessary interference.

Touching on the effect of the Bawku conflict on education in the area, he lamented that the situation had impeded the church and its educational unit from accessing schools in the affected areas.

“Sadly, some school-going age children have stopped going to school out of fear for their safety or have been left unsupervised by teachers who have been compelled to leave the conflict areas due to increased insecurity,” he said.

Challenges

The Upper East Regional Minister, Donatus Akamugri Atanga, said although education remained the pivot around which every facet of development revolved, the education system, for the past years, had been fraught with challenges.

On the forum, he indicated that it was an opportunity to engage in open and constructive discussions to explore concise and actionable recommendations that would form the basis for a comprehensive reform agenda in building an inclusive, equitable and transformative educational system for the country.

In a remark, a member of the NEF Planning Committee, Professor Smile Gavua Dzisi, said the essence of the forum was to allow key stakeholders to have a voice towards improving the country’s education sector for the benefit of all.