Koforidua, July 21, GNA - Transition and Persistence Project (TAP), a USAID sponsored project, in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), on Thursday presented 85 bicycles to Junior High School (JHS) pupils in the New Juaben Municipality in Koforidua.

The pupils were selected based on the fact that they travelled more than five kilometers to school each day.

In addition 302 needy pupils selected from the various schools in the municipality were given two sets of school uniforms, a school bag, mathematical sets and 10 exercise books each totaling 306,000 dollars.

Some JHS pupils in the municipality cross a distance of more than five kilometers each day to school because some communities has no JHS facility and pupils had no option than to either walk or board a vehicle at a cost.

The TAP project is being run by Plan-Ghana in collaboration with GES with funding from USAID to improve education in Ghana, especially in areas of retention and enrolment drive at the JHS level.

Currently the TAP, which is being implemented in four Regions in Ghana, is assisting 15 communities and 21 selected schools in the municipality by renovating old school blocks, providing educational materials, supporting teachers for higher education and in some cases building new classroom blocks.

Ms Mercy Kwafowa, TAP Education Specialist, indicated that despite the rising primary completion rate of 89 percent, the net enrolment rates in JHS had declined from 74 percent to 47.85 percent in 2008/9 academic year.

She said the Government of Ghana (GOG) had therefore made JHS completion a core goal for all education commitment and the TAP project was being implemented to support that effort by removing all forms of barriers.

Ms Kwafowa said apart from that, the project also provided distance learning scholarships to upgrade their qualifications, provide teacher excellence awards and support to GES to promote better supervision of junior high schools.

Mr Nii Lante Cleland, Municipal Director of Education, who received the items, said as part of the project, a new six-classroom block was to be constructed for the Suhyen JHS while many schools would be rehabilitated.

He said the TAP was yielding favorable results in enrolment and education on the whole in the municipality and thanked the project managers for the continuous support.

Two teachers, Priscilla Asaa Akuffo and Patrick Owusu, were awarded with laptops by TAP for their performance that had improved the learning standard of their respective schools.