President John Dramani Mahama has directed the Ministry of Education to ensure that admission of students into the Community Day Senior High Schools (SHSs) being inaugurated in various parts of the country begins immediately.

He said many of the 50 Community Day SHS projects had been completed and that there was the need for the Ministry to ensure that academic work progressed in those schools.

President Mahama gave the directive when he inaugurated the Derma Community Day SHS in the Tano South District of Brong-Ahafo Region on Tuesday to kick-start his three-day “accounting to the people tour” of the Region.

He observed with concern that due to lack of access, about 190,000 students in Brong-Ahafo Region who had qualified for admission were denied access to secondary school education.

President Mahama said the implementation of free day SHS education had started, and indicated that the government had made budgetary allocation of GHC16 million to expand the project to cover boarding students.

He added that a total of 150,000 boarding students from deprived communities were expected to benefit from the project in the 2016/2017 academic year.

Additionally, President Mahama said 3,558,800 textbooks and 137,216 teacher guides would be distributed to all SHSs in the country.

He called for collaboration between traditional rulers and educational authorities in the area for effective management of the school, and expressed the optimism that the provision of teaching and learning materials would bring about an improvement in the academic performance of the students.

President Mahama said the Techimantia-Asuosu-Derma road had been awarded on contract so that on completion, the farmers in the area could easily transport their produce to marketing centres.

He also advised the young boys and girls who had attained 18 years, as well as those who could not register during the 2012 general election to do so when the Electoral Commission began the limited voters’ registration exercise.

President Mahama however cautioned eligible voters against double registration, which he said could disenfranchise them in the November 7 polls.

The Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, cautioned school girls against pre-marital sex and entreated them to concentrate on their books.

She observed that the government had struggled to expand access to secondary education and advised parents in the area to support their children to at least complete SHS education.

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr. Eric Opoku said the Region had not been denied any development, as in the past nine years Brong-Ahafo had witnessed massive growth in the areas of education, health, agriculture and roads.

Mr. Opoku said the only way the people in the Region could express appreciation to the government was to vote massively for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the November election for the Region to benefit from more projects.