Eduwatch: Galamsey, betting driving school dropouts in Northern Ghana

Education think tank, Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), has raised alarm over a growing trend in northern Ghana, revealing that about 70% of out-of-school children aged between 12 and 17 are being driven out of the classroom by illegal mining activities, popularly known as galamsey, and betting.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s Newsroom on Sunday, December 14, Eduwatch’s Executive Director, Kofi Asare, said the latest data points to a troubling shift from patterns identified in the 2021 Population and Housing Census, where most out-of-school children were found in younger age groups.

He explained that the new trend indicates that children in the northern regions are increasingly dropping out of school as they grow older, largely due to the lure of galamsey and betting, rather than failing to enrol at the early stages of their education.

“About 70% of the out-of-school population are aged between 12 and 17, compared to the census data in 2021 majority of the out-of-school children were actually in the lower ages, so what we have seen is that a new trend is emerging in the northern region, where the more people grow, the more they grow out of school.

“Perhaps this is affirmed by the qualitative reasons given for their absence in school, one of which is galamsey, especially in the Talensi area, and children participating in betting to be a major driver of the out-of-school situation, especially boys between 12 and 17 years,” he said.

His comment follows an extensive Out-of-School Children (OOSC) Census conducted across Northern Ghana by Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch).

The Census was conducted across 20 districts in Northern Ghana and aimed to generate robust, community-led data to guide education policy and programming.

The Census revealed that the majority of OOSC were males, particularly in districts such as Chereponi, Nanumba South, Tatale Sanguli, and Bawku West.