According to data from the Metropolitan Education Department of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis in the Western Region, 131 of the 30, 005 applicants who registered for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the previous five years were missing and did not appear for the exam.
According to the 2016-2020 report, 16 of the absentees skipped the exam because they were expecting a child.
According to the metropolitan education report (2016-2020), 94 applicants out of 33,041 registered for Senior High School (SHS) were absent and did not sit for the WASSEC.
These were revealed at a stakeholders' engagement in Sekondi on Thursday by Isaac Aidoo, the coordinator of the Twin-Cities in Sustainable Partnership Project.
He bemoaned the fact that illegal drug use, adolescent pregnancy, child prostitution, and gender-based violence were all on the rise in the metropolis.
"The city is dealing with the challenges of child prostitution, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted illnesses and diseases," Mr Aidoo added. As transactional sex is utilized to lure youngsters from poor homes, child prostitution and adolescent pregnancy are on the rise; this has increased the school drop-out rate among kids without marketable skills."
He pointed out that the circumstance denied adolescent moms the chance to expand their knowledge, skills, and capacity to work and earn money in order to overcome poverty.
Domestic and gender-based violence, he noted, do not assist residents achieve their targeted living standards.
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