Twenty-one pupil teachers in the Salaga North Constituency have received 50 per cent financial support to go through the Untrained Teacher Diploma in Basic Education programme.

Out of the total, 19 would be trained at the Bagaba College of Education in the Northern Region and the remaining two would be trained at the Berekum College of Education in the Brong-Ahafo Region.

The support was from the Salaga North Constituency Educational Fund instituted by the Salaga District Assembly and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Salaga North Constituency, Mr Alhassan Mumuni.

The MP, speaking at a short ceremony organized by the assembly in Gbong to disburse the funds to the beneficiaries on Tuesday, said the aim was to help enhance the skills of the beneficiaries to ensure effective teaching and learning in the area.

Mr Mumuni said lack of trained teachers was one of the causes of poor performance of students in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the area and expressed the hope that the support would help reduce the teacher deficit in the constituency.

Kakpandiwura Baba Shaibu Mumuni, Chief of Kakpandi, appealed to the beneficiaries to come back to serve in their communities to enhance quality education.

He appealed to parents to support their children to acquire education.

Mr Mohammed Amin Lukman, Distrcit Chief Executive of Salaga, commended the MP for his support for the district especially in the area of education.

He said plans were far advanced to improve on the education infrastructure in the area and that the constituency had been considered to benefit from the next batch of the community Senior High Schools.

The DCE advised the farmers in the area to form co-operative societies in order to benefit from the services of the two rice processing plants cited in Janton and Salaga to add value to their produce.

“We want to explore the option of adding value to most of our agricultural produce for both local consumption and export,” he said.