Regional News of Friday, 22 October 2010

Source: GNA

Parliamentary Committee commends PTAs in the Ashanti Region

Ejisu (Ash), Oct. 22, GNA - Members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, have commended the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) of Senior High Schools (SHS) in the Ashanti Region for their active support and involvement in the provision of school infrastructure.

They noted that it has helped complement the efforts of government in solving infrastructural problems in schools. Mr Mathias A. Puozaa, Chairman of the Committee gave the commendation when members of the Committee visited Ejisuman Senior High School, as part of a monitoring tour of the Ashanti Region, to inspect some ongoing GETfund projects in the region. He said they were overwhelmed by the way PTAs in the region were constructing classroom and dormitory blocks in some of the SHS to ease problems facing such schools as a result of increased enrolment. He said they observed that, in some schools, almost all the projects were PTA funded.

Mr Puozaa, who is also the MP for Nadowli East, appealed to PTAs in other regions to emulate the good efforts of their counterparts in the Ashanti Region particularly, those in Ejisu Juaben Municipality, since the government alone cannot solve problems facing secondary education in the country.

He called on the government to make the distribution of education infrastructure more equitable to all SHS in the country, especially those in the rural areas.

He said all the projects they inspected in the region were in good shape and appealed to contractors who were working on them to speed up work, to enable the students to have a place to study. Members of the Committee also visited projects at Achinakrom SHS, Ejisu Presby Primary School, Bonwire Senior High Technical and the Asotwe M/A primary and junior high schools. They inspected works on the rehabilitation of electricity and water systems, classroom blocks as well as the construction of new dormitory and classroom blocks, currently going on in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality.

At Ejisuman SHS, Reverend Oppong Anane, Headmaster of the school told the members that as a result of classroom and dormitory accommodation problems, the Board of Directors have instructed that the first year students should report to school on November 1, 2010. Mrs Margaret Asamoah, Headmistress of Achinakrom SHS hinted that due to infrastructure problems, those who were admitted as boarders into the school this year were still commuting from their homes to the school daily.

The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Mohammed Boakye Agyemang commended members of the Committee for the inspection and promised that the assembly would do all it could to provide the needed infrastructure to support quality education for all pupils and students in the municipality.