Tongo (U/E),– The performance of students at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region has improved over the last three years.
From 2018 to 2020, the district recorded a significant increase in performance with more students passing and gaining admission into second-cycle institutions.
In 2018, only 17 per cent of the students who sat for the BECE passed, but the rate increased to 36 per cent and 48 per cent in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Hajia Adisa Emelia Abdulai, the Talensi District Director of Education, made these known to the Ghana News Agency in an interview at Tongo.
Hajia Abdulai noted that despite the numerous challenges that confronted many schools and the directorate, commitment on the part of the directorate to work collectively with circuit supervisors and management of the schools resulted in success.
She said the staff and director relationship was key, adding “there is cooperation between the staff and I and I do demonstration teaching during my monitoring exercises to lead by example and encourage the teachers to put up their best to help the children.”
The District Director explained that apart from school infrastructures such as classroom blocks, furniture, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) facilities deficit that confronted many schools in the district, the directorate did not have the resources to do proper monitoring.
She said the frequent delay in the release of school grants had crippled the ability of the directorate to get resources to fuel the vehicles of circuit supervisors to embark on monitoring and said, “Most of the time I use my own money to fuel my vehicle to go on monitoring duties.”
She said the district was a rural one and some of the schools were located in hard-to-reach communities with poor road networks, making monitoring difficult.
“Our territory is so wide that it shares boundaries with North East Region and Bawku, they are places that we find it difficult to go because there is no road network and we have to pass through a lot of places before we get there and yet there is no motivation for our School Improvement Support Officers (SISOs).
“Sometimes our officers will travel all these rounds and come back tired and frustrated because there is nothing for them and it is through the monitoring that we can identify these challenges,” she added.
Hajia Abdulai, therefore, advocated an incentive package designed to motivate SISOs on regular basis to ensure that they supported the directorate to do proper monitoring and identification of problems to engage stakeholders to find solutions to them.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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