Persistent poor performance of students presented for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the Sekyere Central District has become a major discomfort – causing worry among parents and teachers.
The District scored 45.9 percent in this year's examination with three of the Junior High Schools (JHS), Bonkron, Nkrudwua and Aframso, scoring zero passes.
Mr Emmanuel Kofi Mensa Adde, the Education Director, said he found it deeply worrying, the abysmal performance saying poor reading habits and ineffective parenting were to blame.
Contributing to discussions at a school performance appraisal meeting (SPAM) held at Beposo, he condemned the high incidence of child-labour, child neglect and parents' failure to spend quality time with their children and properly supervise them in the homes.
This, he said, was creating conditions for school pupils to engage in all sorts of deviant behaviours citing the instance that as many as 12 female candidates who sat for the BECE at one of the centres, Beposo, were pregnant.
Mr Adde encouraged the teachers to work hard and with passion to help make things better.
Dr Thomas Forkuo Agyapong, a retired Civil Servant, invited parents, teachers and the other stakeholders to work together to halt the downward trend.
He underlined the need to reconstitute all dysfunctional school management committees (SMCs) and step up efforts at providing more teachers accommodation.