Quality of basic education declining in Northern Region – Report

• Posted on October 26, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

The standard of basic education continues to decline in some parts of the Northern Region.

This is according to a report released by a Non-Governmental Organization called Choice Ghana.

The organisation surveyed the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, Kpandai and the Sagnarigi districts and came out with the astounding statistics that says 80% of class six pupils cannot answer class 2 level numeracy and literacy questions.

It further disclosed that four out of 10 children of pre-school age are not in school and that only five out of 10 children are in pre-school at the right age.

Programmes Coordinator of Choice Ghana, Adjei Kadiri made these revelations at an education stakeholders’ forum in Tamale where the assessment report was thoroughly discussed.

He said his outfit in 2017 conducted an assessment in the three districts under a project dubbed, “Scale Ghana” which sought to uncover the anomalies in basic education in the Northern Region.

He stated that “six out of 10 children are not enrolled in or progressing in school at the right age in the three districts. On any given day, three out of 10 teachers are absent from school whereas three out of 10 teachers are untrained.”

“Worst still, only one out of 10 trained teachers are teaching in kindergarten. Also during the assessment, we discovered that eight out of 10 schools had no single computer even though seven out of 10 schools in the three districts offer Information, Communication and Technology lessons.”

Kadiri Adjei implied that there was a significant number of children of school going age who were not enrolled in pre-school.

“That is, 42 out of 100 children surveyed were not enrolled. This however, differ from one district to the other as Kpandai recorded the highest number of children (62%) from 3-5 years who were not enrolled in preschool”.

He continued saying, “25 out of 100 children aged 2-3 years are attending preschool even though the policy stipulates that a child can start preschool at the age of 4 years. Only a little above half of the children surveyed were in preschool at the right age.”

“That is 54 out of 100 children aged 4-5 years were rightly attending preschool at the correct age. 20 out of 100 children aged six years and above were attending preschool when they should have been enrolled in primary school.”

The Executive Director of Choice Ghana, Mohammed Seidu explained that the assessment was to establish the knowledge gaps in numeracy and literacy as well as Ghanaian languages study in the targeted districts.

He stressed that it also sought to use the evidence gathered to influence policy reforms in the education sector.

Mohammed Seidu commended OXFAM Ghana and the Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID) for funding and technical assistance.

The Head of Planning at the Northern Regional Directorate of the Ghana Education Service, Askia Mohammed Prince commended Choice Ghana for the good work done.

“The survey has revealed loopholes that are still needed to be plucked through rigorous and persistent monitoring and supervision.”

“Without adequate funding and provision of resources such as teaching and learning materials as well as furniture for pupils at the basic level, the challenges uncovered by the survey will continue to be there,” he bemoaned.