Regional News of Thursday, 9 June 2016

Source: brytfmonline.com

Ghana leads school enrolment rate in West Africa

President Mahama and Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah President Mahama and Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah

Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah has said school enrolment rate in Ghana is the highest in West Africa with over 90 per cent of eligible school children currently in school.

According to the Minister, as at the 2014/15 academic year, 9,202,894 pupils/students were enrolled in 57,293 educational institutions from kindergarten to tertiary level indicating 30.74 percent over enrollment in the 2008/9 academic year.

In a statement signed by Dr. Omane Boamah, it said the achievement is due to the unprecedented investments into the education sector.

The statement said the government will continue to invest heavily in improving the coverage and content of existing social welfare programmes while rolling out new social interventions to assist vulnerable groups in society.

It said Ghana was placed in the Medium Human Development Category with a score of 0.579 higher than Nigeria (0.514), Kenya (0.548), Senegal (0.466) and Cote d’Ivoire (0.462) who all co-signed the Low Human Development Category by their respective scores.

However, the statement said human development was a more encompassing and comprehensive way to conceptualised development as it put people first, hence government acknowledged the gains made over the last few years in major human development indicators.