Sunyani (B/A), Feb 10, GNA- Mr. Joseph Henry Mensah, Senior Minister and Member of Parliament for Sunyani East on Monday donated a total of 70 million cedis to four schools in the Sunyani Municipality at separate functions in Sunyani in appreciation of their good performance in last year's Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSCE). The beneficiary schools were Saint James Boys' Seminary/Secondary at Abesim, near Sunyani, Sunyani Secondary School, Notre Dame Girls Secondary School, Fiapre, also near Sunyani and Twene Amanfo Secondary/Technical School in Sunyani.

St. James Seminary/Secondary, which placed seventh on the national results list received 30 million cedis.

The school presented 204 candidates out of which 192 passed. Sunyani Secondary School, which presented 480 candidates with 354 passes, placing 44th on the national list received 20 million cedis. Notre Dame Girls' School received 10 million cedis for placing 64th, having presented 109 candidates with 69 passes. Twene Amanfo Secondary /Technical School had 10 million cedis for placing 79th, presenting 247 candidates with 143 of them being successful.

Mr. Mensah said he was highly impressed by the results of the schools and expressed the hope that the money, being part of his MPs Common Fund would encourage the management, teaching staff and the continuing students to work harder.

At St. James, the Reverend Father Alex Ebo Ansu, Rector of the school expressed his sincere gratitude to the MP for the gesture and appealed to the Senior Minister to help the school to expand the school's dining hall, which he said could accommodate only 200 out of the 594 students.

He said the construction of the school's library, estimated at 1.3 billion cedis and started last year had come to a standstill due to lack of funds.

We have sand, blocks and boards but we need financial assistance to complete the building, the Rector said.

The Rector described the Senior Minister's gift as a worthy recognition of the sterling academic performance of the school and promised that all stakeholders would do everything to help improve the performance in subsequent examinations.

At Twene Amanfo, Mrs. Georgina Boakye, Acting Headmistress, complained about lack of educational materials to enhance teaching and learning, a problem, which she said, had compelled the school to levy each student 50,000 cedis to address.

She said the day school needed a new vehicle to transport students residing outside Sunyani since the old vehicle donated by Volta Aluminum Company (VALCO) some 10 years ago had become a drain on the school's finances due to frequent repairs on it.

Mrs. Boakye said the school was one of the model Vocational-Technical schools (VOTECH) set up by the Government and appealed to the Senior Minister to help the school to get a hostel for students from outside Sunyani.