He said Star Ghana Founda­tion over the past years initiated various discussions and building consensus in strategies on a wide range of development on girls’ education in the country.

The minister made the state­ment at a forum on promoting girls education in Ghana here in Tamale on Monday.

The forum was organised by Star Ghana Foundation with the objective to provide platform for building a consensus among stakeholders, and renew commit­ment toward collaboration on strategies to secure girls continu­ous access to quality education in the country.

The minister said northern Ghana had been a major ben­eficiary of the projects of Star Ghana Foundation since its estab­lishment in the country.

He said the forum was another demonstration of Star Ghana Foundation’s commitment to promoting the girls education in the northern region.

Alhaji Shaibu added that educa­tion remained the key to contin­uous progress and development of any society, hence the need to place premium on it at all times.

He stated that the recognition of education as a key element, girl child education had received the most focus in recent times with almost everyone agreeing to it.

“If we do not provide the desired attention to girl child education, we cannot achieve any meaningful development,” he said, adding that the importance of girls’ education could not be overemphasised and everyone must come onboard to support it.

Alhaji Shaibu added that, sev­eral studies had also shown that investing in girls’ education was probably the most cost-effective measure as developing country could take to improve its standard of living.

According to him, girls’ educa­tion had been plagued by a lot of challenges including poverty, child marriage, socio-cultural norms that devalued the importance of female education, lack of infrastructure that supports girls in school, and long distances to access school.

He stated that the governments over the years had made a lot of strides to improve a lot of girls in school, and to grant access to those who could otherwise not have the chance.

The minister said some of the efforts made in the last three decades included; the develop­ment of a 10-year education plan for girls, the creation of the Girls Education Unit under the Ghana Education Service, school feed­ing programme, capitation grant and free uniforms.

The Executive Director of Star Ghana Foundation, Mr Ibrahim Tanko, said the founda­tion would continue to engage stakeholders in the education sector to realise the dream of girl child education in the country.