Assessing Girl Child Education and Parental Consciousness and Involvement in the Ashaiman Municipality

Abstract

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana guarantees Free and Compulsory Basic Education to every child of school going age irrespective of gender, religion, ethnicity or geographical location however, this is far from reality as some children in Ghana lack education especially the girl child. Hence the objective of the study is to assess parental consciousness and involvement in the education of their girl child in Ashaiman Municipality and identify intervention measures specifically to improve girl education in the area. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods where interviews and questionnaires were used for data collection as well as utilizing the multistage sampling and purposive (focus group discussion) sampling methods for the selection of the respondents. The analysis of the data was done using Descriptive statistics and the Thematic Analysis (qualitative) using Microsoft Excel. According to the study, poverty, lack of awareness, negative behaviours of household heads toward female education among others correspond to the increased girl dropout in the community. Intervention measures such as awareness creation, provision of financial resources and adequate teaching and learning materials, eliminating retrogressive cultural practices, among others have been proposed.