School Attendance

Data was collected on school attendance for all persons three (3) years and older. School attendance refers to whether a person has ever attended, was currently attending or has never attended school. In the census, school meant an educational institution where a person received at least four hours of formal education.

Although the lower age limit of formal education is six years for primary one, eligibility for the school attendance question was lowered to three years because pre-school education has become an important phenomenon in the country.

Level of education

Level of education refers to the highest level of formal school that a person ever attended or was attending. This information was obtained for persons 3 years and older.

Activity status

Activity status refers to economic or non-economic activity of respondents during the 7 days preceding census night. Information on type of activity was collected on persons 5 years and older. A person was regarded as economically active if he/she:

a. Worked for pay or profit or family gain for at least 1 hour within the 7 days preceding Census Night. This included persons who were in paid employment or self- employment or contributing family workers.

b. Did not work, but had jobs to return to.

c. Were unemployed.

The economically not active were persons who did not work and were not seeking for work. They were classified by reasons for not being economically active. Economically not active persons included homemakers, students, retired persons, the disabled and persons who were unable to work due to their age or ill-health.

Literacy and Education

Literacy in this analysis refers to people 11 years and older who can read and write. Table 3.10 presents in both absolute figures and in percentages the population 11 years and above who are literate in at least one language and those who are not by sex in the district. Just a little over a third of the population aged 11 years and older (34.1%) is literate.

That leaves the majority (65.9%) as not literate in any language. The proportion literate is highest among the age group 11-14 (61.7%) and generally decreases steadily as age increases. The pattern is generally repeated among both males and females. However, the proportion literate is much higher among males (39.5%) than females (29.0%). Interestingly, the proportions literate are very similar among the males and females in the age group 11-14 (61.8% and 61.6% respectively). This age group is very likely composed of people still schooling and therefore reflects the closing of the enrolment gap between males and females observed generally in the country especially at the basic level. The gap between males and females in the proportions literate, however, increases as age increases.

Among the literate population in the district, nearly three-quarters (73.3%) is literate in English only. The proportion is a little higher among females (75.9%) than males (71.3%) and this pattern almost runs through all the age groups. Another 23.4 percent of the total populations are literate in English and Ghanaian language together. A little more males (25.6%) than females (20.5%) are literate in English and Ghanaian language and this pattern is repeated in almost all the age groups.

School attendance and level of education attained

Table 3.11 presents the population three years and older by sex, level of education and school attendance. The table shows that 90.8 percent of the population three years and older are still attending basic education, comprising primary (53.3%), JSS/JHS (17.1%), nursery (12.8%), and kindergarten (7.6%). Less than 10.0 percent (8.3%) is in secondary school and another 0.1 percent is in vocational/technical/commercial institutions.

The proportion of people in post-secondary institutions is less than 1.0 percent of the population three years and older, made up of 0.3 percent in post middle/secondary institutions and 0.5 percent in tertiary institutions. More females than males are attending basic education in the district (93.2% versus 88.8%). The attendance levels are higher for females than males in all the basic levels of nursery (14.1% versus 11.7%), kindergarten (8.1% versus 7.2%) and primary (54.3% versus 52.4%) but JSS/JHS (9.9% males against 6.4% females). The male dominance continues at the higher levels of post middle/secondary certificate (0.4% versus 0.2%) and tertiary level (0.8% versus 0.1%).

School attendance and level of education attained

This section discusses school attendance and level of education of the population 3 years and older. Figure 3.2 shows that among the population, almost sixty percent (57.8%) have never attended any formal education while 42.2 percent have ever attended school (i.e. currently attending, 33.7 percent and attended in the past, 8.3 percent).