The Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to live by its ‘Year of Roads’ mantra to provide easy access to public schools in rural communities. 

The government declared the Year 2020 as the ‘Year of Roads’.  

Leadership of TEWU therefore called on government to live by that mantra, noting that the challenges of accessing public schools in rural areas could discourage children from going to school as they have to travel long distances on bad roads to get to school.  

The General Secretary of TEWU, Mr Mark Dankyira Korankye, who made the call at the Upper East Regional 13th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of TEWU in Bolgatanga, specifically mentioned link roads in the Upper West and Upper East Regions. 

The conference was on the theme: “Fostering partnership for equitable education delivery; role of TEWU.”  

He said “Even as we travelled along the routes from Wa to Bolgatanga and could not find public schools in these areas, we also noticed that the roads are so unmotorable. 

“So even if children would want to access the next education facility which is miles away from where they are living, they still would have to encounter bad roads.  

“We want to call on our government to make every effort to live by its mantra that said the years of roads in 2020 and 2021 which is past and yet a number of roads are yet to be fixed. 

“We are calling on government to live up to its mantra and fix these roads, so that even if the public schools cannot be close by, at least means of transportation will be easy for people to commute from their places of residence to the nearby public institution, thereby closing that infrastructure gap,” he said. 

On equitable education delivery, the General Secretary said gender disparity was one of the factors that militated against equitable education delivery in Ghana, right from the basic to the tertiary level.  

“At the KG level, you probably find equal boys and girls in the classroom, but as you progress, you find that the number of girls keeps dropping until you get to the University where you see a wide gap between the boys and the girls.  

“This again cannot cause us to attain equitable education delivery in our country. Education is a right, and we think that government and all the stakeholders must make every effort in ensuring that every child is given unhindered right to attaining quality education to whatever level they desire,” Mr Korankye said.  

He said the disparity in allocation of educational resources was of concern to them as a Union and said, there were public institutions with less teaching staff as compared to others with more teachers.  

That, he noted, was against the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.