Kusi(E/R), July 24, GNA - A six-classroom-block built by the Kwaebibirem District Assembly for the Kusi Methodist Schools at a cost of 200 million cedis was on Friday inaugurated by the District Chief Executive, Mr. Yaw Yiadom-Boakye.

The building houses the Upper Primary and Junior Secondary Schools. In an address, Mr. Yiadom-Boakye called on parents in the district to ensure that their children were at school instead of winning diamonds or helping them on their farms.

He said education was the golden key to the progress and advancement of any society and the people of the area could not afford to be left behind in the march of progress.

Mr Yiadom-Boakye said it was no use building fine school buildings if there were not sufficient pupils to utilise them.

The DCE said the government and the district assembly were doing their best to provide the basic needs of children and it was up to parents and their children to take advantage of these opportunities. Mr. Yiadom-Boakye said with effect from September, apart from the payment by government of all levies for children in public basic schools throughout the country and supply of textbooks, there would also begin a programme of giving a free meal to each child a day, which would take off in 40 districts.

He commended the contractor, Mr Gideon Marquaye Commodore-Mensah, Managing Director of Gbogbo Limited for the excellent job done in completing the block in five and half months and appealed to the community to ensure that the building was properly maintained.

The District Director of Education, Mr Jonathan Akakpo, thanked Mr Yiadom-Boakye and the District Assembly for the provision of numerous magnificent school buildings and asked parents to send their children to school and encourage them to learn.

The District Director called on parents to make whatever sacrifices necessary to advance the education of their wards and said with effect from September, admissions to Senior Secondary Schools would be computerized and only the best would be admitted.

Mr Akakpo said the churches and the government were partners in promoting quality education and said School Management Committees (SMCs) should live up to their responsibilities since they have even the right to sanction any teacher, subject only to the approval of the District Director of Education.

In a message, the Eastern Regional Manager of the Methodist Educational Unit, Madam Susana Eshun, asked SMCs to check indiscipline in schools and cultivate the culture of maintenance of school property. The Headmistress, Mrs Rejoyce Arko-Mensah appealed to the DCE for the supply of 150 mono desks for the JSS pupils in the school to get acquainted with examination trends so far as individuals sitting arrangements were concern.

The Kusihene, Nana Akesse Appiah II, who chaired the function, appealed to the people to stop spending expensively on funerals but use such resources to give their children quality education.