General News of Saturday, 7 April 2007

Source: GNA

Govt will continue to invest in education -Minister

Pepease,(E/R) April 7, GNA - The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Yaw Barimah has reiterated the government's continuous investment in the country's educational system to provide efficient and adequate training for human resource development.

He therefore advised students in various educational institutions to take advantage of the investment being made by the government to change the educational structure and acquire requisite knowledge in the various disciplines for them to contribute towards the nation's development. Mr Barimah was addressing the fifteen anniversary and second speech and prize-giving day of St. Dominic Technical School at Kwahu Pepease. He said, no nation can develop without adequate training of its human resource personnel and appealed to stakeholders in country's education to supplement government efforts to develop the nation's human resource.

The Regional Minister said; "we cannot do today's work with yesterday's tools to achieve any meaningful result" he added, that is the reason why the government is providing facilities for information, communication and technology studies in all second cycle schools in the country for the students to address with computer studies.

The headmaster of the school, Mr Patrick Asamoah Kodua said the student population had gone up from 285 students in the year 2000 to 3,005 last year, while the day school in 2000 has been able to established a kitchen, which is being manned by Ghana Education Service (GES) staff and feeding 180 students from the hostel.

He said, the school obtained 100 per cent in last year's Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) with an average number of students gaining admission to tertiary institutions.

The headmaster commended the Parent/Teacher Association (PTA) and the community for the construction of a 500,000,000 cedis hostel for girl students, a computer laboratory, assist to cultivate a 100-hectare farm and rehabilitated the school's water reservour and they are also sponsoring the construction of a football field for the school. He said, the Ghana Education Trust Fund is constructing a one-storey girls' dormitory, and assembly dinning hall and headmaster's bungalow at the cost of five billion cedis.

Mr Kodua said the school spends 300,000 cedis on the purchase of water daily and appealed for assistance to solve the water problem. He also appealed for the construction of staff bungalows, an administration block and the supply of a school bus and gas cylinders for the school kitchen.