Upper West Region Girls Education Officer, Janet Kpan, has disclosed that a total of six hundred and eighty-seven (687) girls in the region returned to school pregnant following the closure of schools as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Ghana in May 2020 shut down schools as a means of reducing the spread of the virus that was first recorded in the country on March 12, 2020.
A report indicates that as of May 2021, the Upper West Region alone had recorded 687 pregnancies among girls following the close of all educational institutes in the country.
Madam Kpan made this known in a presentation at the “Back-To-School Campaign” Review Workshop in Wa.
She explained that the situation has led to a majority of teenage mothers dropping out of school with others being forced into early marriages.
Among the cases, 50 of the girls were in Primary Four, 105 in Primary Five, 261 in Primary Six, 48 in JHS 1, 91 in JHS 2 and 139 in JHS 3.
As of May 2021, only eight-four (84) of the girls had returned to the classroom after childbirth.
According to a report by GhanaianTimes, the Regional Girls’ Education Officer added that there has been a decline in school enrollment in the Upper West Region.
In March 2020, a total of 62,803 students were enrolled in the Kindergarten level, the numbers, however, dropped to 58,386 as of May 2021.
Also, at the Primary level, the numbers dropped from 120,089 in March 2020 to 111,692 as of May 2021.
At the Junior High School level, the figures declined from 44,764 to 35,056 students as of May 2021.
Source: ghanaweb
