Agona Kwaman, Aug 11, GNA - Mrs Emma Mitchell, Member of the Council of State, has expressed concern about the falling standard of education in country, saying, "it must be a matter of great concern to all and sundry".

She said "even more disturbing is the disparity between the academic performance of schools in urban and rural areas as well as public and private schools".

"In the past when private schools were not common it did not matter much where a child attended school," she noted.

Mrs Mitchell expressed the concern when she joined the Chiefs and people of Agona Kwaman to climax their Annual Akwambo festival at the weekend.

The Council of State Member said there were committed teachers whose pride was the achievement of high examination success for their pupils and students.

She noted that most teachers were sacrificing to achieve the best for their pupils and students but conditions of service and other factors did not motivate them enough.

The government is doing its best, under the present economic constraints and was making efforts to make rural areas attractive to teachers by providing housing and some basic amenities.

Mrs Mitchell said parents were sacrificing to ensure quality education for their children but expressed concern about the number of pupil teachers in schools especially in rural areas.

She called for cooperation between parents, religious bodies, unit committees, old Boys and Girls, opinion leaders and Chiefs to improve facilities.

The Council of State Member declared that investing in the education of ones children was a way of ensuring comfortable retirement, when they would be in a position to provide for their parents. She called on communities to feel responsible for the well being of teachers by giving them incentives to motivate them to give off their best.

Mrs Mitchell called on past pupils and citizens of Kwaman to contribute to the Educational Endowment Fund to support needy pupils. She announced two awards for pupils of the community who obtain the best aggregates at the Basic Examination Certificate Examination (BECE) and Senior Secondary School (SSS) examinations.

The awards to be known as the Godfred Yamoah awards for excellence would be in honour of her father who was the first headmaster of the Agona Kwaman Methodist School.

She said the Girl-Child Education Unit of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport had programmes to help girls to develop their talents.

Mrs Mitchell donated one million cedis to support the Educational Endowment Fund.