Mrs Theresah Oppong- Mensah, the Director of School Health Education Programme (SHEP) of the GES, noted that peer group influences remained the driving force of teenage pregnancy and substance abuse, that manifested partly into acts of lawlessness in SHSs. She explained that the GES with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), was tackling the menace head-on through extensive training on Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) and life skills for the SHS students. 

Mrs Oppong-Mensah said this when she spoke with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Sunyani on the sidelines of an on-going inter-school club leaders and patrons training workshop. The two-day training workshop aligned with the implementation of Phase Two of the Adolescent Girls Programme (AGP II). AGP II is a UNFPA multi-sectoral initiative designed to empower adolescents, especially girls with the knowledge, skills, and support needed to make informed life choices through reproductive health education, rights-based services, and life skills training. 

Mrs Oppong-Mensah said the GES was determined to ensure that no SHS student was left behind in accessing quality education, saying that exposing and enlightening the SHS student on life skills would empower them enough to remain studious. She noted that empowering the students with life skills and health education would enable them to be agents of change, and impact society positively, stemming the growing acts of lawlessness and disrespect of authority in SHSs and society at large. 

Mrs Oppong-Mensah said presently the training was being held in five regions, explaining that so far similar training had been held in Eastern, Ashanti, Volta and North East, and expressed the hope that the training would capture all the regions by the close of the year. She emphasised that the training targeted teachers, leaders of the various School Health Clubs as well as peer leaders in the beneficiary regions and thereby inspired them to go back and impart the knowledge they had acquired to bring about positive change at their various schools and society. 

Mrs Oppong-Mensah said with the level of students’ interest and participation in the training, the GES would be able to achieve useful outcomes and thereby bring about positive change in the various schools and expressed appreciation to the UNFPA. 

Mr Benjamin Siripi Quartson, the Deputy Bono Regional Director of Education, said shaping the minds and ensuring proper upbringing and development of the SHS students, remained the collective responsibility of all stakeholders. He emphasised that the GES remained resolute to instill and promote a high sense of discipline, civility and moral uprightness among SHS students, with families also having a responsibility in ensuring that their children and wards were brought up in a responsible manner. 

Mr Quartson noted that though canning had been abolished in schools, families ought to desist from interfering whenever their children and wards were undergoing some punishment for breaking school regulations and other rules. In an overview, Reverend Patrick Banafo, the Programme Officer at GES and a facilitator at the training explained that the AGP II sought to build on the successes of the execution of the Phase one by strengthening advocacy, life skills development, and access to essential information. He said the training focused on Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH), Menstrual Health and Hygiene (MHH), Prevention of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), HIV and STI prevention, Mental health and Psychosocial Support (PSS).