As part of measures aimed at promoting the welfare of children and providing valuable data to help Ghana achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the Ghana Statistical Service, UNICEF and other partners have conducted the 6th round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey to asses the situations of women and children in various communities in the country.
The survey was conducted between 2017 and 2018 on child protection, early childhood education and child health and nutrition across the country, but with much focused in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.
Speaking at a forum, Peter Takyi Peprah, Project Coordinator of the Ghana Statistical Service, explained that, after their key findings, it was revealed that a lot of men do not care much about their children’s education, especially those in the rural areas.
“Per our findings, it showed that 3 out of 100 percent of fathers in the rural areas help their children in learning at home. This means that mothers play a more critical role compared to fathers in engaging children in learning and reading activities at home.” He explained.
Mr. Peprah noted that, when it comes to the urban areas, more proportions of children as in percentage, 82% attend early childhood education compared to those from rural areas (62%).
He however added that an estimated number of children between the ages of 5 and 14 years always applied 21 hours of a threshold household chores.
“Percentage of children at age 5 to 17 engaged in child labour, in the Upper East Region, 42 percent of children normally found doing hazardous labour.” He said.
He however charged parents to take the role of educating their children seriously as out- of -school children at the primary level remains high at 19 percent and relatively lower in the Junior High at 7 percent, and again increase to 25 percent highest in the Senior High schools.
Source: A1radioonline.com | Moses Apiah | Ghana
