GOVERNMENT is to make funds available for the construction of an additional 1,500 classroom blocks in selected areas of the country this year, to deal with the ‘school under trees’ phenomenon, Vice-President John Mahama has announced.
He said last year, the government constructed 1,000 school buildings in its quest to eliminate the 4,400 ‘school under trees’ dotted in various parts of the country, which had deprived many a child of quality teaching and a learning atmosphere.
Vice-President Mahama was speaking at the 84th Speech and Prize-giving Day of the Krobo Girls’ Presbyterian Senior High School at Odumasi Krobo in the Eastern Region on Saturday. It was on the theme, “Socio-economic development of Ghana-The role of Girl education.”
He said the government was steadily fulfilling its promises made in the educational sector, saying, it had achieved 80 per cent coverage in the distribution of free school uniforms to pupils.
He said it was the expectation of the government that by the end of next month, 100 per cent coverage would have been attained, after which the programme would re-start.
Vice-President Mahama said the promise to offer bursaries to girls offering science and technology courses had already been met, adding that the School Feeding Programme was being diversified to target more deprived schools.
Focusing on the theme, he said adding value to women, whom he described as ‘raw materials’ was the sure catalyst to the development of any nation. “No nation can move forward without emphasis on education and emancipation of women,” he stressed.
“Let us open up the horizon space of our girl children so that they can break out of the stereotypes that society has created for them,” Mr. Mahama stated, pointing out that women were not born to be home keepers.
“By educating women, you are more likely to reduce the number of maternal and child mortality, an educated woman is more likely to put her children to school than an uneducated one; an educated woman is more likely to have more nourished children than an uneducated woman,” he emphasized.
Commending Krobo Girls’ school for the immense contribution in human resource to national development, the Vice-President assured the school authorities that the GET Fund would address the school’s infrastructural challenges.
Professor Akosua Anyidoho, Director of the New York University in Ghana, who is an old student of the school, took issues to the phenomenon of male teachers who sexually harass and abuse students in schools.
She called on the Ministry of Education to enforce stricter punitive measures such as outright dismissal from the teaching profession of teachers who were found culpable.
Ms. Cecilia Obenewaa Appiah, Headmistress of the School mentioned lack of a reservoir, a fence wall for the school, inadequate dormitories and library facilities and inadequate classroom blocks as some of the problems facing the school.
She catalogued strides made by the school in the fields of sports, inter-school debates and high academic standards, a feat she attributed to discipline in the school.
Story: Irene Ata-Donto
12/2/11
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