Nadowli, UWR, Nov.15, GNA - Some women in the Nadowli District have accused their husbands of frivolous spending on alcoholic beverages to the neglect of their children's education. They also blamed the some of the elitist husbands in the area of spending on the education of their girlfriends to the detriment of their own children.

This practice, they noted, had contributed to the high dropout rate of children, especially girls in schools, in schools. On a platform organised for parents of 40 basic school girls under the Barclays Bank and Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO) sponsorship project at Nadowli, the women complained that the education of children had been left in the hands of mothers alone, many of whom were subsistence farmers and "living from hand to mouth".

"The Girls' Retention Enrolment and Transition Project" is the brainchild of the Nadowli Assembly Women Advocacy Group (NAWAG), aimed at helping to promote girl-child education in the district. The women called for cooperation between men and women and the judicious use of resources for the education of children to help push the development of the district forward. They also called for effective collaboration between men and women for the proper upbringing of children, saying: "It takes two to bring up a child and not one, as it is the case now".

Madam Mary Grace Bonye, Nadowli District Director of Education, who addressed the forum, pleaded with parents to sacrifice their pleasure in drinking, buying of clothes and utensils for the education of their children.

She said frivolous spending on funerals and other trivial events of parents were on the increase and urged them to redirect their energies and resources towards the education of their children. Those practices which lead many parents to bequeath poverty to their children should give way to positive thinking and planning towards children's education, she said.

Madam Bonye said it was worrying to see many children of school going age still roaming about in the communities without attending school. She said the government's pro-poor education policies such as the provision of free uniforms and exercise books, the School Feeding Programme and Capitation Grant would yield no benefits if parents were lackadaisical about the importance of the programmes. She said the programmes were introduced to support all children regardless of their social status and called on parents to patronise them for the benefit of their children.

Madam Bonye called on community members to take active interest in the maintenance of teachers posted to their schools and encourage them to stay and teach to help promote quality education. She appealed to parents to remove all constraints, especially cultural practices such as elopement, early marriage, broken homes and peer group pressures that impede education of girls in the district. Madam Bonye announced that the district education office was supporting the project with 400 assorted textbooks and exercise books to encourage them to stay at school and complete their basic education. Mr. Mohammed A. Majeed, District Planning Officer, who stood in for Mr. Abu Kasanbata, Nadowli District Chief Executive, said the assembly would continue to support the girls to attain higher education, saying, girl child education was dear to the government. He said the retention of girls in school would not be possible if parents as well as teachers and the district assembly were not playing their roles appropriately. Madam Sandra Scantlebury, Executive Director of NAWAG, said the project had also formed Virgin and Child Rights Clubs in schools throughout the district to help in the maintenance of girls. She said resource allocation to girls' education was inadequate and that had affected their education as many of them fall prey to men. 15 Nov. 10