News:
January 21, 2014
Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Deputy Minister of Education, has appealed to leaders to provide platforms to raise the standard of education in their communities.
He said the Government of Ghana would continue to make education a priority because it was the key to unlock the potential of the people, eradicate poverty, ignorance and disease.
The Deputy Minister, who is the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, said the standard of education was falling in the area and promised to team up with other stakeholders to raise pupils’ performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to a 100 per cent pass by 2016.
Mr Ablakwa said this on Monday at the launch of the first ever North Tongu Mobile Library and Teacher Training Program for English Language at Battor in the North Tongu District.
He initiated the three-month project which runs from January 2014, with 1400 books stocked in a mobile bus.
The British Government, through the British High Commission, is supporting with a grant package of 10,000 pounds. Other collaborators are the Ghana Library Authority, EPP Book Services, the North Tongu District of the Ghana Education Service and the North Tongu District Assembly.
The Mobile Community Library Project is to enable teachers, pupils and students and people of the North Tongu to attain high proficiency in the English Language, help students and teachers in other subjects as well as see an improvement in pupils grades at the BECE.
The mobile library visit schools in the area for pupils and teachers to borrow books. There will be staff of the District Ghana Education Service and teachers of each school to guide the pupils and teachers.
Statistics shown to the Deputy Minister showed that only 20 per cent of 22,000 candidates who wrote the BECE in 2012 passed, and this rose to 32 per cent in 2013.
He said the performance rating of the district at the BECE had fallen from the 100th district to the 160th.
Mr Ablakwa said some interventions were being pursued to reverse the trend, with a target of 100 per cent pass by 2016. Adequate textbooks and syllabi had been distributed to all schools s in the area and trained teachers were being re-deployed and redistributed to schools without trained teachers.
There is also an on-going programme for effective monitoring of teaching and learning as well as both local and international refresher and capacity building workshops for teachers.
Mr Ablakwa said the District Education Office, which some time ago did not have vehicle, had been provided with a pick up.
Mr Peter Jones, the British High Commissioner in Accra, in message read on his behalf by Madam Patricia Adu-Twum, Project Support Officer, pledged continued support for projects aimed at developing education in Ghana.
“It is our aim that at the end of this project, schools within North Tongu will be among the best performing schools in the SHS and BECE results.
Professor Emmanuel Netsey-Afedo, the Project Manager, called on parents, teachers, chiefs and other leaders in the area to ensure that the project succeeds.
Mr Francis Ganyaglo, the Deputy Volta Regional Minister, unveiled the bus with the books.
Source: GNA