Accra, Dec 3, GNA - The Anlo Education Trust Fund (AETF) has launched a three-year strategic plan to raise GHc1,000,000,00 to support education of brilliant but needy students and provide critical education infrastructure for schools in the area.

The plan involves "sensitizing all people of Anlo and Parent Teacher Associations, education and school authorities to make contributions to the fund, organising fund-raising in identified communities and soliciting the support of donors, organizations and well-wishers for specific projects and programmes related to their areas of support" towards raising the required sum of GHc1,000,000,00 to address some of the educational challenges in the area.

In the long run the AETF, which is a non-profit organization, projects to raise GHc5,000,000,00 to ensure that all children of Anlo attain the highest level possible in education. Mrs Bridget Katsriku, Vice Chairperson of the Public Services Commission, who presented the plan during the launch in Accra on Thursday, called on all to donate to the AETF to enable it to achieve its objectives because "every child that goes to school is an asset to the community". The Anlo land comprises traditional areas stretching from Ave-Dakpa in the middle belt of the Southern Volta Region of Ghana, Akatsi, Agbozume and Dzodze; the whole of the Coastal belt, stretching from Aflao, the Eastern part of Ghana to Anyanui in the Western part of Keta and all other towns on both sides of Keta Lagoon, with Anloga as the traditional capital. Mrs Katsriku, a native of the area, said a needs assessment conducted by the AETF few months ago, identified challenges which militated against accessibility to education and the performance of children at the basic school and second cycle levels, as well as entry to tertiary institutions. She said the assessment revealed that there was the urgent need to "construct 897 new classrooms, construct 248 library facilities, establish ICT laboratories in 331 schools, construct 82 washroom facilities for schools, provide water to 223 schools and extend electricity supply to 247 schools to reverse the declining levels of teaching and learning in the Anlo land.

She said the schools also had a deficit of over 1000 trained teachers. She said such was the situation of education in the Anlo land making the AETF to develop the plan, adding in the short term, the AETF would establish scholarship schemes for 500 students, construct improved classrooms for five kindergartens, establish two libraries and computerise six junior high schools to rescue the situation. Mr Mawuko Afadzinu, Head of Marketing, Stanbic Bank Ghana Limited who represented Mr Alhassan Andani, Managing Director of the Bank to launch the plan, pledged the bank's commitment towards the fund. Mr Afadzinu, who is also a native of Anlo, described the plan as "forward-looking" and called for the fund to be extended to average but hardworking students of the area.

In an appeal-for-fund, a total of GHc290,000,00 was raised in cash and in pledges. Professor Victor Patrick Yao Gadzekpo, Chairman of AETF, thanked contributors to the fund for their support, which would go a long way to open doors for the children of Anlo land.