INVEST IN YOUR CHILDREN’S EDUCATION – MINISTER ADVISES PARENTS 20th June, 2019
The Upper East Regional Minister, Hon. Paulina Patience Abayage has charged parents to do everything possible to educate their children, especially the girl-child stressing that “if you want your children to sit at the decision making table in the future, you must invest in their education”.
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| Hon. Paulina P. Abayage delivering her address |
She noted
that, most decision-making positions in today’s world have been taken by men
and using herself as an example, remarked that it would only take a proper
education to push women up there.
Hon. Abayage stated that government
had demonstrated a strong urge to promote quality education through the
implementation of the Free Senior High School programme, the Ghana School
Feeding Programme and the regular disbursement of the Capitation Grant to basic
schools. She observed that these were all targeted at encouraging children to enroll
in school and stay on to complete in order to become useful adults in future.
She therefore admonished parents to turn priority from spending huge sums on
funerals and expensive clothing to investing same or even more on their
children’s education.
Turning her focus on the durbar
itself, the Minister noted that the queen mothers’ association was a very
important group as it created a platform for quality interactions amongst members and
also allows for sharing of best practices. Additionally, the association helps
to build the capacities of its members on critical issues such as government
policies on gender, child protection and aspects of the Domestic Violence Act
as well as discussions on cultural norms for the betterment of their
communities.
Madam Abayage commended the chiefs,
queen mothers and people of the Bawku Traditional area for the sustained peace and
emphasised that, such a peaceful and conducive atmosphere was prerequisite for development
and entry of investors into the area to create jobs and employment.
Paramount Queen Mother for the
traditional area, Puanaba Alasbuudi in her address disclosed that the area had
25 Divisional Queen Mothers who in turn had about 60 Sub-Divisional Queens all
assisting the Bawku Naba, Zug-Raan Abugragu II to administer the area. She
recalled that in 2010 when the announcement came from the National House of
Chiefs about the need for the institution of queen mothers, she sighed a big
relief because she saw that as fine opportunity to bring women’s contributions
to the fore.
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| A cross section of the Queen Mothers |
The Puanaba said since the coming
into being of the queen mothers council, the Bawku Traditional Council has been
of immense support to them and expressed optimism that such assistance will
continue and improve in the coming years.
According to her, rampant teenage
pregnancies, the practice of female genital mutilation, child abuse and
parental neglect as well as lack of economic empowerment opportunities were
among obstacles impeding the progress and well-being of women in the area. She
thus called for support for a massive sensitisation campaign of adolescent
girls particularly those in school on ways to prevent early pregnancies. She
also called for a change in attitudes of people in authority against stereotyping of women as
such phenomenon limits the full potentials of women with regards to national
development.
Meanwhile, the Bawku Municipal
Chief Executive Hajia Hawa Ninchema in her welcome address earlier, enumerated
a number of projects government had brought to the municipality and revealed that
of 10 allocated dams under the 1-Village 1-Dam, eight had so been completed.
She added that works on a warehouse project to store excess produce from the
Planting for Food and Jobs Programme were progressing steadily.
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