MP SUPPORTS FIVE GIRLS (MIRROR, PAGE 35, MAY 29, 2010)

From Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bawku

The Member of Parliament for the Binduri Constituency within the Bawku Municipality of the Upper East Region, Mr. Stephen Yakubu, has given an educational support package worth GH¢1,000 to five young girls who performed very well in the 2009 Basic Education Certificate Examination.
The donation, sourced from the MP’s share of the GETFund, is meant to support the beneficiaries who are all in Senior High School till they complete their education at that level.
Addressing the beneficiaries and their parents at a short presentation ceremony at Bawku, the MP said girl-child education in the constituency had caught his attention because he had realised that a wide gap exists between the number of male and female students at the tertiary level.
He said there was the need to provide incentive packages to motivate the girl-child to enable her study hard and move higher on the educational ladder.
Mr. Yakubu noted that this gap was as a result of the attitude of parents who withdraw their female children from school and give them out for marriage just to receive their dowry, which are usually cows.
He advised parents to desist from such practices and rather maintain and support their daughters in school because education was the only key to development in all spheres of life.
He disclosed that because of the importance he attached to education in the constituency, he had started renovating a kindergarten block at Kolovia, a community in the area and the construction of a two-classroom block at Gotisalaga, all in Binduri.
The MP appealed to the government to involve all the five MPs in the Bawku Municipality in initiatives targeted at resolving the conflict in the Bawku area.
The Bawku Municipal Director of Education, Mr. Eugene Zongoh-Naa Domah, said the financial burden of education was so high that government could not handle it alone, hence the need for stakeholders like NGOs and philanthropists to channel their resources to support and promote education, especially those in remote and deprived areas.
He also urged the beneficiaries to aim high and look up to successful women as their role models in order to motivate them to achieve better goals in life.