Cape Coast, March 20, GNA - The Deputy Minister of Education, Mrs Elizabeth Amoah-Tetteh on Saturday re-echoed calls for appropriate measures to be put in place to address certain weaknesses in the education sector.

She said such an intervention would help churn out products who are well equipped to cope with the current global technological advancement. The Minister said there was the need for Ghana to give priority attention to technology education because of the increased global competition that has hit all spheres of human endeavour. Mrs Amoah-Tetteh made the call at the 80th Speech and Prize Giving Day of St. Augustine's College in Cape Coast on the theme: "80 years of excellence in academic and moral training; the way forward." She reiterated government's commitment to ensure quality and accessible education at all levels for the benefit of all Ghanaians. She said government acknowledged the crucial role education play in national development, adding that it was in this regard that appropriate policies and programmes are being pursued to assist educational institutions to produce quality human resource to serve the manpower needs of the nation.

"This is amply demonstrated by the high level of budgetary allocation to the various levels of the education sector from the basic to the tertiary level in order to expand infrastructure and other facilities in the sector."

She said the removal of bottlenecks in the school feeding programme, the free school uniform programme to deprived areas in the region and the distribution of 42,650,000 exercise books free of charge to pupils were just few of the measures being taken by government to ensure quality education.

The Deputy Minister added that "the greatest asset of every nation is its human resource, and any activity that is geared towards the improvement of human resource must therefore be commended and supported".

Mrs Amoah-Tetteh congratulated the Board of Governors, staff, Parents Teacher Association and old boys of the school for their hard work and dedication that had enhanced academic performance of students. The Headmaster, Mr. Joseph Connel said the sudden increase in student population from 1,272 in 2008 /2009 to 1,377 in 2009/2010 academic year was having a toll on its inadequate facilities and appealed to the government for support. He said the location of the school, which was close to the sea highly affect its structures and requested for assistance from the government to help refurbish the affected facilities. On academic work, he said performance continued to improve and there was relative improvement in 2009 West Africa Secondary Schools Certificate Examination with 98 per cent pass of candidates in all subject areas as against the 97.6 per cent in 2008. He advised the students to use their time meaningfully for studies. Prizes were awarded to deserving students. 20 March 10