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School authorities at Ningo in the Dangme West district of the Greater Accra Region are expressing grave worry over the rate at which teenage girls, particularly those at the primary class three to class six, are dropping out of school as a result of pregnancy.
Twenty-five little girls below the ages of 16, during the 2010/2011 academic year, were reported to have dropped out of class at 16 various public schools spanning from Ningo to Lekpongunor.
The creeping tendency is said to be even worse among junior high school girls in the district who, after delivering, do not find the opportunity of getting back to the classroom attractive.
Some heads of basic schools, who expressed unhappiness over the situation in the Ningo-Prampram district, attributed the phenomenon to the lack of control on the part of most parents in the area who do not only shirk the responsibility of educating their wards on abstinence from premarital sex but, also, allow them to dictate their own lives.
Mary Chibu, headmistress of the Ningo D/A JHS, among several heads in the district who shared their sentiments in an interview with The Heritage newspaer, lamented that, “I have two JHS 1 girls who are pregnant this term, and got three who sat for the recent Basic Certificate Education Examination.”
She asserted that “these girls start from lower primary around a population of 40, they get to JHS 3 and their number falls to 17,” noting that, if the trend was not checked, the cost burden for the district would be unbearable.
She placed the problem squarely at the doorsteps of parents whom she accused of failing to see the essence of educating their wards, and are always on the run looking for money and, thereby, shirking their parental roles.
Mrs. Chibu cited their reluctance to honour parent/teacher association invitations and the unwillingness of most parents to even buy learning materials that would enhance learning and effective tuition of their children to show the extent to which “they leave that load of shaping the future of their children on us.”
To reverse the trend of rampant teenage pregnancy in the district, she proffered the banning of children from attending funerals and cinemas which has proven to be fertile grounds where these naïve girls are lured by sex-craze men.
The seemingly worried headmistress suggested an “external educational campaign” by the appropriate authorities to orient the parents on the importance of education and its impact on the future of their children. This, in one way or the other, would whip some level of interest in supporting the education of their children. (Source: The heritage)
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