Teenage Mothers To Go Back To School

The Obaapa Development Foundation has launched a programme to encourage teenage mothers who have dropped out of school to continue their education.

About 100 teenage mothers from Afigya Kwabre, Atwima Nwabiagya, Atwima Mponua, Amansie Central and Ejisu-Juaben, all in the Ashanti Region, are expected to continue their senior high education at the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year.

Twenty girls were each selected from the five districts under a project known as “Teenage Mothers Back to School” which is being piloted in the districts by the foundation under the directorship of Nana Adwoa Anwinor, a television presenter.

At a forum held at Nkawie in the Atwima Nwabiagya District of Ashanti, the Ashanti Regional Co-ordinator of the Obaapa Development Foundation, Mrs Angelina Sarfo-Adu, said the project, after being successfully piloted in the beneficiary districts, would be extended to other parts of the country.

She said facilities had been put up to cater for the babies of the teenage mothers while they were in school, and pointed out that the programme would also benefit other girls who dropped out of school for various reasons and called on the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to support the project.

The Atwima Nwabiagya District Chief Executive (DCE), Nana Asare Bediako, said teenage pregnancy continued to have a negative impact on the education of girls in the district and pledged the assistance of the assembly for the success of the project.

For her part, the Atwima Nwabiagya District Director of Education, Mrs Mary Owusu Akyaw, said the Ghana Education Service (GES) had embraced the project with the hope that it would go a long way to impact positively on education.

She said much as the education directorate was concerned about quality and affordable education, it was pertinent to be equally concerned about the well-being of schoolchildren, especially when it became necessary to send teenage mothers back to school.

She expressed gratitude to the foundation for the project but advised the girls to make good use of the opportunity provided them.