The Upper West Region has since 2002 been recording a worrisome sharp decline in Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) performance.
Data from the Education Management Information System (EMIS) indicated that in 2002 the Region’s BECE pass rate stood at 61 per cent which declined to 60 per cent in 2006, 47 per cent in 2011 and 12.6 per cent in 2014.
EMIS data is based on the four core subjects, that is English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, which are very important requirement for basic students seeking to progress in their education.
Madam Clara Dube, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, presented the data during the Upper West Regional Annual Review meeting held in Wa on Thursday.
It was organised by the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) with support from UNICEF.
Madam Clara called for concerted efforts among stakeholders in identifying and addressing the bottlenecks in order to secure the future of the children’s education in the Region.
Dr. Musheibu Mohammed Alfa, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, expressed his sadness about the situation, saying if care was not taken; the Region would soon record a single digit pass rate.
“Being part of the political leadership in this Region, I feel very sad. Listening to this, I am a very sad person. This is unacceptable,” he lamented.
The Deputy Minister therefore tasked the Regional Education Directorate to sit up and put pragmatic measures in place to ensure that the declining situation was reversed in the coming years.
Dr. Alfa also appealed to other stakeholders to play their roles effectively to support the education directorate towards addressing the embarrassing challenge.
He noted that the Regional reviews could also be described as a kind of peer reviews for instilling principles of transparency and accountability among stakeholders in local governance.
The review was meant to provide the RCC; the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to periodically discuss development using key indicators and targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda II as bench marks to measure progress in reducing poverty and promoting development in the Region.
It is also to facilitate the collection, analysis and dissemination of information on performance and outcomes and enable the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) and the MDAs to feed the analysis from the district and regional reports directly into policy and decision making processes.
Source: GNA
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