Gomoa Abrekum (C/R), Nov. 26, GNA - Speakers at a forum at Gomoa Abrekum organized by International Needs Network, a non-governmental organization, have called for enforcement of the law on Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education to make parents liable for children who are not enrolled in schools.

The forum was to sensitize fishermen on a law banning children below the gage of 18 from going on fishing expedition. Miss Alberta Bruce, Girl-Child Education Coordinator at the Gomoa West District Directorate of Education, said it was over a decade since the FCUBE policy was implemented to get school going-age children enrolled and maintained in school. However, she said, about one-third of their number was not in school and their parents were doing noting to get them enrolled in school. Miss Bruce mentioned fishing communities as the worst offenders and said if no law was enacted to punish parents whose children were not in school government interventions such as the Capitation Grant, free uniforms and books would not yield any dividend. Mr Wallace Akyeampong, the Gomoa West Social Welfare Officer, said he was not happy with how the Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies had been handling the issue of children not enrolled in school. He suggested instituting task forces made up of the police, social workers and some assembly members to go round during school hours and detain children who ere not in school and release themafter their parents had paid some fine. Mr Akyeampong said anything which kept the child out of school was classified as child labour. For instance, he said, when a mother asked her daughter to look after her sibling whilst the mother attended to another duty and that prevented the daughter from going to schools, the mother could be arrested prosecuted for causing child-labour.

Mr John Amoah, the Gomoa West District Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), said the government realized that it was education which could get the citizens out of poverty and had introduced the FCUBE to promote education yet some parents were trying to sabotage the policy. He appealed to parents not to let government's efforts to make education accessible to every child to be in vain, adding that under the FCUBE programme every child must have education to at least junior high school level.

Nana Kwame Andoh, the Chief Fisherman of Abrekum, commended the NGO for organizing the forum and said he would do everything possible to prevent children from being used for fishing. Mr Kobena Appoh-Arthur, Headmaster of District Assembly Schools at Abrekum, appealed to the Education Directorate and the District Assembly to provide the schools with furniture. He said the furniture situation in the schools was precarious with most of the children sitting and writing on the floor. Nana Boateng Appenteng, Project Manager of the NGO, said similar meetings had been planed for other coastal communities in the Gomoa West District and the Effutu Municipality.