Mankranso (Ash), May 17, GNA - The Ahafo-Ano South district is among 40 deprived districts in the country selected to benefit from a World Bank pilot project that will give free education to school children for five years.

The children in schools in the beneficiary districts will not pay school fees, sports and cultural fees, Mr Kwaku Obeng Boateng, the District Chief Executive, announced on Thursday.

Addressing the district assembly at Mankranso, he therefore charged parents to send their children to school to benefit from the pilot project so as to ensure that they become useful citizens in future.

Mr Boateng said the assembly was sponsoring 124 teacher-trainees and two nurses who will return to the district to work after their training at the cost of 67 million cedis.

The DCE said an amount of 750 million cedis was released from the HIPC fund to support school and other projects, while 479 million cedis from the common fund was also being spent on a number of projects. He said inland valley rice projects would be undertaken at Adugyama, Potrikrom and Biemso Numbers One and Two, with the release of 500 hectares of land by those communities under the President's Special Initiative (PSI).

Mr Joseph Agyemang Dapaah, the Presiding Member, commended the government for its support to the district and mentioned areas such as education, agriculture and the provision of infrastructure generally as some of the benefits that had come to the district.