1.4.0 Social Services
1.4.1 Education 
The number of educational institutions in the Municipality is 255 out of which, 180 (70.6%) are public schools while 80 representing 29.4% are privately owned. For all the levels of education, more than 65 percentage are publicly owned. The Municipality has four (4) Senior High Schools. 
The state of educational infrastructure can be described as moderate. There are inadequate classrooms at both the KG and primary levels. The situation is even worse in rural communities.  At the primary level, there are 8 classrooms under tree and 16 dilapidated. Most of the schools do not have ancillary facilities like toilets and urinals. Where these facilities exist, they are either in deplorable state or they are not enough for the pupils and teachers.
Figure 1.3 shows the ownership and various levels of educational institutions and the circuits in the Municipality.

Figure 1.3: Educational facility map in the Kwahu South Municipality

Source: KSMA, 2021

1.4.2. Access and Participation to Education
Both the Gross Enrolment Ratio and the Net Enrolment Ratio indicate that all persons of school going age are enrolled in school. Figure 1.3 shows that enrolment decreases at higher educational levels. The NER shows that more than 40 percent persons of school going age at all levels are not in school. Teacher people ratio is high at the KG level but lower at the primary and JHS. 


Figure1.4: Access and Participation to Education

Source: GES MIS, 2021

1.4. 3. Health Care 
Health is one of the important sectors in the Municipality.  The Municipality has two systems of health services delivery-the orthodox and the traditional systems. These systems play complementary roles in delivery of health services.  The orthodox system has both private and public health service providers. 
 
Access to health services in the Municipality is inadequate and hence should be improved to help raise the standards of living of the people.
The Municipality has 31 health care facilities manned by both public and private sector operators. The details are as follows;
Out of the 23 CHPS Zones in the Municipality only 15 have compounds, while the rest are operating from rented rooms. Also, all the health centers in the Municipality lacks laboratory facilities which hinders the service delivery. Most of the laboratory cases from both far and nearby towns in the Municipality are being referred to the main hospital at Atibie to be run. This usually prolong treatment, increase the cost of treatment, put pressure on the main facility as well as the health personnel’s and even with some cases been worsened.

Administratively, the Municipality has been categories into six (6) health Sub-districts thus; Asakraka, Bepong, Kwahu Amanfrom, Kwahu Praso, Mpraeso and Nkyenenkyene, for effective health delivery. The Municipality is also home to a midwifery training school.                             The doctor to patient ratio is 1:12,277 and nurse to patient ratio is 1:337. 

1.4.4. Top Ten Diseases
OPD attendance increased from 110,753 in 2019 to 136,714 in 2020. Malaria continues to top the ten (10) diseases and causes of OPD attendance in the Municipality followed by Upper Respiratory  tract infection, Rheumatism and Diarrhea over the past two years (2019-2020) as shown in the figure 1.3 below.

Figure1.5: top 10 diseases 

Source: KSMA Health Administration, 2021

Figure 1.6 health facility map of Kwahu South Municipality 

Source: KSMA, 2021

1.4. 5. Nutrition 
Table 1.3, shows the trends of the malnutrition of children between 0-5 years from 2018 and 2020. Comparing the 2018, 2019 and 2020 annual year performances with regards to growth monitoring and promotion, the table below indicate a continuous decline.  

Table 1.3: Nutritional status of the children (0-59) months

Source: MHA KSMA, 2021

1.4.6. Child Protection
The Municipality has a very youthful population and there are a lot of factors that predisposes them to risks. Majority of children in the Municipality have been left in the care of their grandparent’s whiles the parents travel to other cities to look for better opportunities. The grandparents mostly are unable to give the children the best care and upbringing which exposes them to danger. The Department of Social Welfare and Community Development work closely with communities to provide quality care and support to vulnerable and disadvantage individuals, caregivers and families within varied of settings. Due to the long distance between some communities and the Department, many individuals, families and caregivers are discouraged to report child welfare cases to the Department. Child Protection Committees have been formed in some communities to help resolve child welfare issues at that level and those cases beyond them will be referred to the Department for redress.

1.4.7. Gender and Vulnerability
Participation of women and children in decision making is limited. As at 2020 only one woman contested in the local level elections. Out of the 38 Assembly members only two (2) are women. The situation is even worse with the unit committee where women constitute less than 2 percent of 130 elected to the unit committee members.
The extremely poor are particularly vulnerable to sickness, unemployment, disability and loss of assets. This in turn increases the risk of falling even further into poverty and deprivation.
Some of the Social Protection programs implemented in the Municipality includes Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), Ghana School Feeding Program, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Empowerment Programmes for Person with Disability,  Exemptions and Basic Education Capitation Grants. The Municipality has 241 LEAP beneficiary households in 42 communities, with about 1,500 individual LEAP beneficiaries. Approximatly, 30 schools are benefiting from School Feeding Program with a total number of 10,327 of which 5232 and 5095 are male and female respectively. The number of PWDs economically empowered currently stood at 346 persons consisting of 108 males and 238 females. On the Capitation Grants a total of about 18,233 pupils are benefiting constituting 9,472 males and 876 Females.  Looking at the  youthful nature of the population in the Municipality these interventions needs to be expanded to cater for the growing population.

1.4.8 Water Security, Sanitation and Waste Management
a) Water Security
The availability of potable water is very vital for the socioeconomic development of every society. Potable water in the Municipality is under two types of management.
Pipe-borne water supply at Mpraeso, Atibie, Obomeng, Bepong and Asakraka is under the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) and borehole and protected hand-dug wells in the rest of the Municipality managed by the various Water and Sanitation Management Team. The potable water coverage in the Municipality is 47.8 percent. The coverage is higher in urban areas (61.5%) than rural areas (44.1%). The Pipe borne water which only services Mpraeso, Bepong, Atibie, Asakraka and Obomeng is unreliable due to undergoing works on the Kwahu pipe water system. Kwahu Amanfrom operates a small-town water system which provides water to more than 80 percent of the households. The Municipality has a total of 73 water facilities. Out of the 73 facilities, 28 are not functioning while 12 are functioning but need maintenance. In terms of facility type, boreholes with pump (45) have the highest concentration, whereas Mechanized Boreholes (7) have the least concentration. Mpraeso and Bepong Zonal Council has the highest number of facilities (17) followed by (20) and Kwahu Praso (15). 


b)  Sanitation and Waste Management
bi) Solid Waste Management
Solid waste management in the Municipality has actually deteriorated due to inability of the Environmental Health Unit to evacuate public containers, due to the frequent break down of the only truck for some time.
The collection, transportation and disposal of solid and liquid waste are the sole responsibility of the Municipal Assembly which operates through the Zoom Lion Company limited. Solid waste is done in three ways: door to door, dumping at refuse site and communal container system. 
The Assembly uses 12 refuse containers for the communal container system. The  Environmental Health unit in collaboration with Zoom lion regularly administer refuse collection for onward disposal from markets, lorry parks and other public centres to the only land fill site located in Asakraka. Notwithstanding this development, most of the refuse dumps have developed into severe eye-sore monuments partly due to the act of crude dumping. 

bii) Liquid Waste Management 
Household Waste Water Disposal             
About 48.3% of households in the Municipality dispose their liquid waste by throwing onto the compound of their houses, 28.6% throwing onto the street or outside the dwelling, while 16.3% of households dispose of their liquid waste into gutters and 0.8% through the proper channel-sewage system.&nbs