Education

Distribution and Location of Schools

Adansi Aokwa District is a rural district with most of the communities situated in the hinterland. The number of communities along the major road is far less than those in the hinterlands.

Most of the Basic Schools are public whilst few are private. The rest of the institutions are public. Most of the pre-schools, primary and J.H.S are located in the rural circuits.Over 70% of the schools in the circuits are in the hinterland.

Physical Facilities

The District area has seventy-six (76) Kindergartens, seventy-seven (77) Primary Schools, fifty-eight (58) Junior High Schools and two (2) Senior High Schools. Over 80% of the post Junior High School institutions are evenly distributed within the District. Despite the numerous educational facilities in the District area, the standard of education is not encouraging due to financial constraints. About 39% of pupils of school going age are out of school. Most of the Basic School buildings are in deplorable state with cracked walls, rotten windows and door frames, rusting and leaking roofs. The situation is more pronounced in the remote areas.

Teachers’ Bungalows, pupils’ furniture, teachers’ tables and chairs, library and J.H.S workshops are also lacking in most of the schools in the District.

Table 1.30 NUMBER OF SCHOOLS AND ENROLLMENT IN THE VARIOUS EDUCATIONAL LEVELS 2018


 

The above table shows that thedistrict is endowed with more qualified trained teachers as compared to the untrained taechers. About 95% of untrained teachers are found in the District private schools while amost al the trained teachers are at the public schools.

From the above table it depicts that the classroom pupil ratio in Adansi Asokwa is on the high compared to the classroom pupil ratioin public schools the National standard.

Pupils/Students Population

There were 5,819 pupils in Pre-school as at April, 2018; 11,864 in Primary School, 5,595 in J.H.S and 1,221 in S.H.S. This is made up of 52.3% boys and 47.7% girls. Private school enrolment at the Pre-school level was 1,648, Primary school, 594 JHS, 308 and SHS 61.

Pupil-Teacher Ratio

This refers to the number of teachers to take care of a certain number of pupils over a given period of time. The pre-school teacher-pupil ratio in the District is 1:22 as compared to the regional of 1:24. The teacher-pupil ratio for primary school in the district is 1:24 as compared to the regional and national ratios of 1:26 and 1:29 respectively. At the JHS level, the teacher pupil ratio is 1:12 as compared to the regional ratio of 1:13 and the national of 1: 14. At the S.H.S the teacher pupil ratio is 1:19 regional 1:23 and national 1:2.

The District Director is responsible for the management of education in the District. However, individuals and groups, especially Religious bodies, have established educational management units to be responsible for the schools they have established.

Though the faith-based organizations assign their unit heads specific responsibilities which have great influence on the day-to-day running of their establishment, those schools are still considered to be public. This is because these schools have been absorbed by the government and thus provides all the necessary logistics and material resources to the schools

Teacher Profile

Due to the fact that the District is rural and deprived, it has never had the full complement of teaching personnel since its creation. Teachers posted to the District for reposting in most cases refuse to accept posting to the rural schools.

Current teacher populations in the District reveals that Two-thirds ( 2/3) of the teachers in the District are pupil teachers. There are 607 trained teachers in Basic Schools as against 81 untrained teachers. Trained Teachers in SHS stand at 185 and untrained, 15. Out of a total of 997 teachers in Basic Schools, 610 are males whilst 387 are females. There are 56 male teachers and14 female teachers in the SHS schools.

The District Assembly is assisting UTTDBE students to enable them become professional teachers for the District.

Teacher Distribution

Obviously, untrained teachers are not ranked according to GES rules due to the fact that they are not professional. In all, there are 997 trained teachers in basic schools and 70 in the two S.H.S in the District.

Though some schools have very high population most of the remaining schools are sparsely    populated..

District Performance in BECE

Trend analysis of BECE pass rate from 2014-2017 reveals percentage  pass rate has been increasing but 2016 there was a decrease in gthe percentage pass but bounce back with 99.2% indicating that there wasincrease in the percentage pass. This is illustrated by table 1:43

Senior High School (SHS) Education

There is (1) Public Senior High Schools and one (1) Private Senior High School in the District. These Public SHS are Bodwesango Senior High School and Christian faith High School at Hwiremoase. Facilities in the schools need to be upgraded to appreciable standards in terms of provision of classrooms, laboratories, Assembly Halls, Libraries, Dormitories for Boys and Girls and Staff Accommodation.

This is as a result of the introduction of the ‘Free SHS’ in September, 2017 which absorbed majority of JHS leavers who hitherto could not gain access to SHS due to non payment of academic user fees. This has brought excessive pressure on infrastructure in SHS and therefore, there is the need to address the infrastructural deficit to meet the growing student population.

Capitation Grant

The Capitation Grant was introduced in the District in 2006. The total release of funds since 2013/2014/2015/2016/2016/2017 academic years was GH¢ 382,910.12. The details are:

Academic Year                 GH¢

2013/2014                    142,925.50

2015/2016                    110,587.97

2016/2017                   129,397.65         

TOTAL                        382,910.12   

Highlights of expenditure include:

• Minor repairs

• Sanitation in schools

• Teaching/learning materials

• Sports and culture

• Support for needy children

• School management

The programme is bedevilled with a number of challenges which are;

• Delay in the release of Grant

• Insufficient grant to schools with low enrolment

• Deduction of COT by banks

Ghana School Feeding Programme

 The Ghana School Feeding Programme like in many other districts started in Adansi North District Assembly in 2006. 

Currently, the District has Sixteen (16) schools under the Ghana School Feeding programme with total enrolment of 4,723. The total number of males and females in various beneficiary schools under the program is 2,444 and 2,279 respectively.

The basic concept of the programme is to provide children in public primary schools and kindergartens with one hot adequately nutritious meal, prepared from locally grown foodstuffs on every school going day.The decentralized nature of the programme requires the involvement of local actors in the implementation. The mainline actors are the Ministry in charge, the Ghana School Feeding Programme National Secretariat, District Assemblies, District Implementation Committees (DICs), School Implementation Committees (SICs), Schools and Caterers/matrons. The table below indicates the names of beneficiary schools and their enrolments.


 

Central Government Releases

Currently, it has become difficult to track the total amount of money that the central government released as transfer to the caterers because of the e-zwich system of payment of which caterers receive money direct from the central government in their individual accounts. Challenges

Increase in enrolment.  There has been increase in enrolment since the inception of the programme.  The Caterers use the monies which have been allocated based on the approved number to feed all the children and this affects the quality and quantity of the food served.

Late release of funds.  The Caterers use their own monies to feed the children and they are reimbursed by the School Feeding Secretariat after one or two months.  It therefore puts a lot of financial burden on the Caterers.

Inadequate Logistics.  The programme relies on the Assembly for logistics and since the Assembly does not have adequate logistics, it hinders efficient running of the programme.  For example cooking utensils, bowls, cups, etc.

Lack of motivation for Desk Officers.  The Desk officers do not receive allowances and this serve as disincentive to work.

Data on school enrolments not updated regularly to ensure that monies released corresponds to the number of pupils to be fed.

Benefits of the Ghana School Feeding Programme

i. Offered jobs to 16 caterers and cooks

ii. Increase in enrolment

iii. Offered ready market for farmers in the beneficiary schools

iv. Enhanced attendance and retention of pupils

v. Improved academic performance

vi. Improved the nutritional status of children in the beneficiary schools

To address the poor quality of education delivery in the District, the following measures have been put in place:

District Level Examination has been introduced based on the Ghana Education Service approved syllabus and the first papers are written at the end of the first term.

The District Assembly has passed Truancy Free bye-law designed to encourage all school-going children to be in school during school hours.

The Assembly will support about 40 needy students annually from its budget.