Tamale, May 9, GNA - A Northern Region education sector annual review conference has shown that teacher training and deployment is still a problem in the area as 52 per cent of the teachers are untrained as against 48 per cent trained teachers.

This was contained in a communiqu=E9 issued at the end of the three-day second Northern Region Education Sector Annual Review forum in Tamale on Friday.

The communiqu=E9, signed by Mr. John Kwesi Hobenu, the Regional Director of Education, said the teacher-student contact hours were lost because the teachers did not stay in the school community but commuted daily between urban and semi-urban locations to their places of work in the rural areas.
The document also indicated that even though the provision of education infrastructure had greatly improved in the region, many school buildings were of poor quality and far below standard.
Poor performance at both the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West African Senior High School Certificate Examination (WASHSCE) was also identified at the forum as one of the educational challenges in the region.
"Regional achievement is very poor on the average. Boys continue to out-perform girls..." the communiqu=E9 said.
The communiqu=E9 stated, however, that despite these challenges, there had been a drastic improvement in enrolment due to the introduction of the school-feeding programme.
"The school feeding programme has been successful in improving enrolment from 11,703 at the start of the programme to the current enrolment of 16,718 as at the end of 2007," it said. The participants recommended that the government should provide at least two more teacher-training colleges to increase the quality and quantity of supply of teachers in the region as part of the efforts to address the challenges. They appealed to the government and authorities at the District level to work towards improving the incomes and welfare of teachers to promote their dignity.