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The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has called on the public to support the innovation by the government to promote girl-child education. A statement issued by the ministry yesterday noted with concern some unfavourable reactions by some members of the public and parliamentarians to the scholarship component of the Secondary Education Improvement Project approved by Parliament on July 3, 2014. Under the project, 10,400 SHS students, especially girls will receive scholarships over a three-year period. The scholarship package includes payment of school fees, examination fees, transportation to school, uniforms, house dresses, P.E kits, school shoes and bags, exercise books, sanitary pads and stationery. Selection of the needy students will be done by an independent scholarship administrator who will apply an agreed upon criteria. The statement, signed by the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, explained that adolescent girls in SHSs and students from low -income families in Ghana would benefit from the scholarship package. �This is to ensure they are supported by the government of Ghana to remain in school and complete their secondary education successfully,� it said. Scholarship package It said the categories of students who would benefit from the scholarship package were self-financing students, disabled students, orphan students, students living with HIV/AIDS, students from LEAP households, among others. �Of particular interest has been the inclusion of sanitary pads in the scholarship package for the beneficiary students. Concerns have been raised about why the government of Ghana should use taxpayers� money to procure sanitary pads for girls. �These concerns are unfounded, since evidence has shown that investing in girls� education and ensuring that adolescent girls are supported during their first years of sexual maturity have a direct positive impact and increase their chances of staying in school,� it explained. Research The statement further said research conducted by a team of researchers in Ghana in 2008/9, funded by the Green Templeton College of the University of Oxford and supported by the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, showed that the provision of free disposable pads and education on menstruation improved school attendance among girls and potentially improved retention. Absenteeism dropped from 21 per cent of school days missed to nine per cent. As noted in the report, �Girls need sanitary care methods that minimise the visibility of puberty by avoiding accidental leakage.� Another study in 2011, the statement said, showed that menstruation caused Kenyan girls to lose an average of 3.5 million learning days a month. This, naturally, has implications for the education of girls. UNESCO also estimates that one in 10 African adolescent girls miss school during menses and eventually drops out of school because of menstruation-related issues such as inaccessibility of affordable sanitary protection. Basically, girls stay at home because they lack sanitary protection and towels and so they stay at home to avoid staining themselves and getting embarrassed in school and in public. Cost The statement noted that sanitary pads were costly and some girls and their parents could not afford to buy them, making some girls to use unorthodox materials during menstruation. �East Africa is leading the way in providing vulnerable girls with sanitary pads and we must adopt this best practice which has been going on in Kenya since 2007. �The Kenyan Ministry of Education plans to provide sanitary pads to all Kenyan schoolgirls. These pads can be produced locally by rural women in Ghana, as is being done by rural Indian women,� it said. It pointed out that the initiative by the Kenyan Government was as a result of �persistent pressure� from female parliamentarians about the plight of Kenyan girls during menstruation. Ghana, it said, had made significant and impressive progress over the last two decades in promoting gender equality in access to primary and secondary education. Gross enrolment rate had increased from 93.7 per cent in the 2006/7 academic year to 105 per cent in the 2012/13 academic. �Menstruation should not be a barrier to an adolescent girl�s educational rights in Ghana. This is what the Government of Ghana is seeking to address by ensuring that needy girls are provided with sanitary pads so they stay in school,� the statement added.