Literacy and Education

Literacy

Table 3.9 presents the population 11 years and older by sex and literacy status. From the Table, more than 90 percent of the population aged 11 years and older in the Municipality are literate. Females have higher proportion of not literate population than males. More than three quarters (72.0%) of the literate population are literate in English and Ghanaian language. Less than one percent are literate in English and French, with about one-fifth in English language only. Among the age groups, persons in age group 14-19 years have the highest proportion of those literate in English language only. The trend is the same for both sexes.

Among the age groups, persons aged 65 years and older have the highest proportion (44.8%) of not literate population with the female proportion (60.2%) higher than that for males (23.0%). Data from the table shows that the proportion of the not literate population in the Municipality increases with increasing age. The same trend is observed for the female population. The trend differs slightly with the male population with the proportion not literate higher for age group 35-39 than the two succeeding age groups (40-44 and 45-49).

Education

The educational status of the population in the Municipality is discussed with respect to current and past school attendance. For each of them, the analysis is given by sex. Table 3.7 shows that majority (54.9%) of the population currently in school are in the basic school level, i.e., primary and JSS/JHS. Persons in senior secondary schools constitute 12 percent of those currently in school. A small proportion (1.1%) are in vocational/ technical schools with about 13 percent (12.6%) in tertiary institutions. The proportion (57.0%) of females in basic schools in higher than that of males (52.8%), but the reverse is the case for those in tertiary education (9.7 % for females and (15.3%) for males).

For persons who have attended school in the past, higher proportions are recorded for those who have attended middle (26%) and JSS/JHS (25.5%) than the remaining categories. It is worth noting that the proportion of persons who have attended vocational/technical/commercial in the past is higher than those currently in those institutions. The percentage of males who have attended tertiary education in the past is double that for females.