Takoradi, Aug. 13, GNA - Prof Ivan Addae-Mensah, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, has appealed to traditional rulers, opinion leaders, district assemblies and educational authorities in the Western Region to co-ordinate their efforts to ensure that there was long-lasting, sustainable qualitative change in the educational fortunes of the region.

He made the call when delivering a paper on "Education, Capacity Building and Human Resource Development in the Western Region" at an education forum in Takoradi.

The forum forms part of the First Western Region Homecoming Summit that is under the theme: "Education - Key to Development".

Prof Addae-Mensah said, "If the region does not take appropriate steps to ensure that education is given all the priority attention it deserves, the region will have no business to complain that it is denied its fair share of the natural resources of the region".

"Only young men and women can therefore not complain if they are unable to obtain jobs due to lack of adequate qualifications." Prof Addae-Mensah said investors who come to the region expect to find the requisite manpower to employ in the enterprises they establish. He said the University of Ghana admitted 2,176 students in 1998/1999 and 3,186 students in 1999/2000 from 338 educational institutions to pursue various courses.

For those two academic years, Western Region schools accounted for only 84 in 1999 and 97 in 2000.

Prof Addae-Mensah said the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology including the School of Mines at Tarkwa, admitted 1,210 students in 1998/1999 and 164 in 1999/2000 from 226 institutions and only 65 in 1998/1999 and 164 in 1999/2000 came from schools in the Western Region.

He said in effect, only 20 out of the 42 schools in seven districts in the region were able to contribute students to the two universities each year.

Prof Addae-Mensah said, Western Region schools contributed 3.8 per cent and 3 per cent of the national intake to Legon in 1999 and 2000 and 5.4 per cent and 4.4 per cent of the total national intake to KNUST in 1999 and 2000 respectively.

He said the government's policy of a model senior secondary school in each district should be supported to improve the level of enrolment.