Bolgatanga, Aug. 5, GNA - Eight primary five pupils in the Bolgatanga Municipal Education Directorate were impregnated in 2003, Miss Francisca Ateere, Girl-Child Education Officer in the Municipality, told a Gender Sensitisation Workshop in Bolgatanga. She said nine primary six girls in Gorogo Primary School were withdrawn from school and given away for marriage this academic year. She said her outfit had initiated action to get the girls back to school and urged the participants at the workshop to get all stakeholders in education to make it both gender and child-centred for effective education of girls.

The Department For International Development (DFID) of Britain sponsored the workshop, which was attended by 40 female teachers. Mr Victor Abagre, Assistant Director of Education in Charge of Supervision, asked teachers to visit the homes of their pupils to interact with their parents as they used to do in the past. He said in the good old days, the commitment of teachers to the pupils they taught encouraged the children to develop interest in education and to take their lessons seriously. The Assistant Director said by visiting their pupils in their homes to get to know the pupils' problems would ensure effective teaching and learning in the schools.

Mr Abagre said parents, who neglected the basic needs of their children were driving them into truancy, absenteeism and other negative tendencies, adding that the current wave of armed robbery on the country's highways could be traced to parental neglect of children in their adolescence. He urged to use the skills they acquired to train female pupils to avoid pre-marital sex, which could land them in teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS, thus ruining their lives and their education.