Mr Mohammed Imran, Principal Civic Education Officer at the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), has said Project Citizen, was helping build “quality citizenship” for students.

He said though the country’s democracy was being reduced to competition for political power, beneficiaries of the project have begun mapping out strategies to addressing community problems.

Mr Imran was addressing a training of trainees’ workshop for selected teachers in the Volta region, ahead of a regional inter-schools “Project Citizen” competition.

Project Citizen is a portfolio based on public policy and implementation learning process for students

Mr Imran asserted that Project Citizen had in the last 10 years made democracy “sensible” to students at the Senior High School level, and helped them to appreciate policy formulation and implementation.

Sponsored by Hanns Seidel Foundation (NGO), the project will require participants to be tolerant of others towards consensus building.

Mr Imran said a cursory observation indicated that young people in the country were using democratic means to solve socio-economic challenges and gradually developing “civic character.”

He observed that people who had entered into politics were chalking successes out of it and, therefore, urged teachers to develop and sustain the interest of students in civic responsibility and public policy.

Mr Imran also asked them to encourage students to engage in civil discourse with open and critical mindedness.

Mr Augustine Bosrotsi, Deputy Volta Regional Director of NCCE, said the project was deepening democracy in the country with the involvement of in-school youth.

The project places a demand on teachers to prepare their students on how to conduct research and how to tolerate others towards consensus building.