Koforidua, April 27, GNA- The third Global Week of Action Day on Education, under the theme "Children missing out in school" organised by the Ghana National Education campaign Coalition (GNECC), an Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) was launched at Koforidua on Tuesday.

The day, which falls on the third week of April every year, is an international event observed all over the world with a campaign to discuss and address educational issues affecting children. It aims at influencing policy decisions and change practices and attitudes on specific issues on education in favour of the poor, the marginalized and the vulnerable, lobby national governments and people in leadership positions to provide more resources and political will to enable all children attend school.

Speaking at the function, the Eastern Regional Minister, Dr Francis Osafo-Mensah, pointed out that since sound education is the key to national development, the government is committed to development of education in the country.

He recalled that within the last 12 years, two major reforms in education had taken place in the country aimed at improving equity and quality in education as well as making education more relevant to the country's socio-economic requirement.

He said statistics show that about 78 per cent of children of school-going age are in school, an indication that there are more children, especially, in the deprived areas who are still not in school. Dr Osafo-Mensah attributed inadequate infrastructure, limited number of teachers, lack of logistics, low community involvement in education, inadequate school management, and lack of strong inter and intra partnership among stakeholders and government as some of the factors militating against quality education.

In her welcoming address, Mrs Francisca Borkor Bortey, Eastern Regional chairperson of GNECC, said the Coalition had inaugurated branches in seven districts of the region. She noted that education was the axle on which development rests and the country's constitution provides for equal access to quality education.

Mrs Bortey, who is also the Regional Secretary of Trades Union Congress (TUC), gave the reasons as poverty of most parents, misplaced priorities of most parents in relation to their children's education, and inimical cultural practices against the girl-child education. She, therefore, called on all stakeholders in education to play their respective roles effectively to ensure that quality education continuous to be accessible to all children.