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Invest in your children’s education – Minister urges Parents

The Upper East Regional Minister, Paulina Patience Abayage has charged parents to do everything possible to educate their children, especially the girl-child stressing that “if you want your children to sit at the decision making table in the future, you must invest in their education”.

Date Created : 6/26/2019 9:08:51 AM : Story Author : Peter Atogewe Wedam/ Ghanadistricts.com

The Regional Minister indicated this in her address at a durbar of Queen Mothers and Women of Kusaug in the Bawku Traditional Area in the Upper East Region. The durbar was under the theme “The Role of Women in the Kusaug Traditional Area in Development”. She noted that, most decision-making positions in today’s world have been taken by men and using herself as an example, remarked that it would only take a proper education to push women up there.

Mrs Abayage stated that government had demonstrated a strong urge to promote quality education through the implementation of the Free Senior High School programme, the Ghana School Feeding Programme and the regular disbursement of the Capitation Grant to basic schools. She observed that these were all targeted at encouraging children to enroll in school and stay on to complete in order to become useful adults in future. She therefore admonished parents to turn priority from spending huge sums on funerals and expensive clothing to investing same or even more on their children’s education.

Turing her focus on the durbar itself, the Minister noted that the queen mothers’ association was a very important group created a platform for quality interactions amongst members and also allows for sharing of best practices. Additionally, the association helps to build the capacities of its members on critical issues such as government policies on gender, child protection and aspects of the Domestic Violence Act as well as discussions on cultural norms for the betterment of their communities.

Madam Abayage commended the chiefs, queen mothers and people of the Bawku Traditional area for the sustained and emphasised that such a peaceful and conducive atmosphere was prerequisite for development and entry of investors into the area to create jobs and employment.

Paramount Queen Mother for the traditional area, Puanaba Alasbuudi in his address disclosed that the area had 25 Divisional Queen Mothers who in turn had about 60 Sub-Divisional Queens all assisting the Bawku Naba Zug-Raan Abugragu II to administer the area. She recalled that in 2010 when the announcement came from the National House of Chiefs about the need for the institution of queen mothers, she sighed a big relief because she saw that as fine opportunity to bring women’s contributions to the fore.

The Puanaba said since the coming into being of the queen mothers council, the Bawku Traditional Council has been of immense support to them and expressed optimism that such assistance will continue and improve in the coming years.

According to her, rampant teenage pregnancies, the practice of female genital mutilation, child abuse and parental neglect as well as lack of economic empowerment opportunities were among obstacles impeding the progress and well-being of women in the area. She thus called for support for a massive sensitisation campaign of adolescent girls particularly those in school on ways to prevent early pregnancies. She also called attitudes of people in authority against stereotyping of women as such phenomenon limits the full potentials of women with regards to national development.

Meanwhile, the Bawku Municipal Chief Executive Hajia Hawa Ninchema in her welcome address earlier enumerated a number projects government had brought to the municipality and revealed that of 10 allocated dams under the 1-Village 1-Dam, eight had so been completed. She added that works on a warehouse project to store excess produce from the Planting for Food and Jobs Programme were progressing steadily.