Mr. Albert Atutiga, Proprietor of the Tamale Girls’ International High School (TAGIS High), has decried the manner in which majority of men in the Northern Region had no time for their children’s education, which continues to draw back northern education.

He said though the world today was driven by formal education, some parents in the Northern Region were yet to recognize formal education as the only means of securing a better future for their children, and as an investment for their own future.

Mr. Atutiga expressed the concern in Tamale on Wednesday during a stakeholders’ forum on reproductive health, organized by Pagba Saha Foundation, an NGO, with funding from Star-Ghana.

The forum brought together some stakeholders in education and some students to deliberate on problems of teenage pregnancy, maternal mortality, and unsafe abortion with a view of helping address the problems.

Mr. Atutiga said, “I am sad that most men especially in Northern Region here have no time with their children’s education. In my school, when the children come only a few men visit or even make efforts to find out about the progress of their children, which is bad.”

He said though girls were able to educate themselves and find jobs to take good care of their parents more than their men counterparts, some parents in the Northern Region were still neglecting the education of their girl-child, which must be addressed.

He explained that most of the girls who got pregnant while in school had no other alternatives of getting money to pay fees than engaging in immoral sex, and appealed to parents, especially men, to develop the interests in educating their daughters.

Chief Alhassan Amadu, Northern Regional Director of the National Population Council, said Northern Region was the lowest region in the country in terms of patronizing family planning methods, which makes women give birth as many as seven children on the average per woman.

He said teenage pregnancy was still on the ascendancy, despite numerous intensive sex education, and stressed the need to encourage people to have the courage to discuss reproductive health issues at homes.

Madam Linda Amoah, of the Counseling and Guidance Unit at the Northern Regional Education Office, observed that responsible persons in society were impregnating teenage school girls, and called on District Assemblies to enact by-laws to punish perpetrators.

She regretted that some parents in the Northern Region could leave their children as young as six years, on the streets of Tamale at odd hours, which was not auguring well in child upbringing.

She said taking good care of children was the first step to Heaven, and that some parents in the North take delight in giving birth to many children and leave those children to fend for themselves, which according to her, was not religious.

Hajia Suweratu Alhassan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pagba Saha Foundation, urged parents, assembly members, and chiefs, to play their various roles in ensuring that parents take good care of their children.