The Nadowli-Kaleo District Assembly has donated 50 sets of school uniforms and ten laptops to the first batch of students enrolled at the Girls Model Junior High School in the Upper West Region.

Presenting the items to the school on behalf of the Assembly, Katherine T. Lankono, the Nadowli-Kaleo District Chief Executive stressed on the need to educate the girl child.

Quoting the popular saying “If we educate a boy, we educate one person. If we educate a girl, we educate a family – and a whole nation,” the DCE explained that “By sending a girl to school, she is far more likely to ensure that her children also receive an education. As many claim, investing in a girl’s education is investing in a nation’’.

She said, child marriage in some cases involving girls as young as 6 or 8 mostly results in the end of a girls’ schooling.

According to her, “The result is literate young mothers without adequate tools to build healthy, educated families. On average, for every year a girl stays in school past fifth grade, her marriage is delayed a year. Educated girls typically marry later, when they are better able to bear and care for their children.”

Madam Katherine said President Nana Akufo-Addo’s agenda for the education sector is to provide equal opportunities for the girl child in the country, and it is on that course that the government introduced the Free Senior High school policy, to help the poor afford education.

She, therefore, called on the traditional authorities to look beyond giving out their girls for marriage to put them in the class room.

In 2017, the DCE inspected progress of the first phase of the construction of deluxe classroom block at the Sankana Model Junior High School as part of the government’s Urban Policy and Planning Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development programme: "Integrated Rural Community Access Project with funding from the Government of Japan (JGCVF)".

The head teacher of the school, Christiana Kuunyaygna who received the presentation for the 35 first batch students admitted in November 2017, commended the DCE for the support and pledged to use the uniforms and the laptops to the benefit of the students.

The school is expected to start a boarding house system in 2019.