The Rev Dr. Joyce Aryee, Executive Director of the Salt and Light Ministries, says girls’ education was key to ending poverty and disease that afflict large portions of the Africa population.

She said girls’ education could also help in achieving MDGS 2 and 3, universal primary education and promoting gender equality and empower women adding, “girls education is like life itself because variably and invariably they impacts a life to others”.

Rev. Dr. was speaking at the 67th Speech and Prize Giving Day of the Ahantaman Girls’ Senior High School at Ketan in the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolis.

The theme was Girls Education: A Driving Force for Poverty Alleviation in the 21st Century, the Need for Stakeholder Involvement.

The Ahantaman School, since its inception in 1940s, had undergone a lot of changes from the days of Royal Commercial College through to Ahantaman Senior Co-educational to its present Girls’ school.

She said education of girls and women remained the most effective tool to alleviate poverty, gender equality, HIV/AIDS reduction adding that the myriads of problems blocking Africa’s development could indeed be overcome when girls were properly educated.

Rev. Dr. Aryee said promoting girls’ education was actually promoting education for the future generation since an educated woman, “Is far likely to ensure that her children also receive education”.

She said girls’ education could decrease maternal mortality, child marriage, population explosion, decrease infant mortality, domestic and social violence, stop militancy and terrorism and improve socio-economic growth and political involvement.

Rev. Dr. Aryee said it was sad to notice that rural girls continued to lag behind in education which is a basic human right and called on stakeholders to look out for alternatives in attracting the rural girl to school.

Mr. Paul Evans Aidoo, the Western Region Minister, said girls’ education must be supported because it was essential for literate society, empowerment and economic growth and the key to child survival as well as healthy development of the next generation.

He said the government was placing strong emphasis on science, technical and vocational education as an essential component of basic education to ensure that the country’s human resource was fully equipped to manage the socio-cultural, economic, and political as well as the natural environment.

Mrs. Mercy Ocloo, Headmistress of the Ahantaman Girls’ School, mentioned the numerous successes chalked by the school in the areas of essay competition, sports, debate and the exchange programme with a school in the US.

She mentioned the bad roads, lack of dormitories and science laboratory and skills centre as some of the urgent needs of the school.