Mr Mark Owen Woyongo, Minister of Interior, has reiterated that education was a tool for development for any society and therefore the need to make it a priority in all aspects of planning.

Mr Woyongo said “our future lies on education and we need to make extra efforts to make it a priority for all in the Kassena Nankana Municipality (KNM).

The Minister made the call during an address to the chiefs and people of Kassena Nankana Municipality on the occasion of Fao festival celebrated annually to appreciate favors received from the ancestors and God for good harvests.

The Interior Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Navrongo, urged the sons and daughters living outside the Municipality to be involved to push the education agenda of the area further through their commitment and contribution in cash and kind.

Mr Woyongo indicated that part of his MP common fund was spent on education and said more deprived children in the area required similar support to enable them go to school and called for fund raising during such festive occasions to raise funds to support more needy students to go to school.

Navro Pio, Wekem Arthur Balina Adda , Chief of the Navrongo Traditional Area, expressed concern at the falling standards of education at both junior and senior secondary levels, which he attributed to irregular school attendance, migration among the youth to the south, staying late at night at funeral performances and poor parental care.

Navro- Pio condemned alcoholism, premarital sex and drug abuse among the youth and called on stakeholders to join hands to seek solution to the educational problems in the municipality.

To fulfil his pledge to award deserving schools for good academic performance, the chief presented a cow to the St John Bosco Junior high school for obtaining 100 percent in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) with 10 distinctions.

He congratulated the District Director of Education and staff for keeping to the promise to work hard and urged them to continue to do more.

Meanwhile Dr Stanislaus Kadingdi, District Chief Executive of KNM has expressed worry about non-teaching of the Kassim Language in schools in the area which he indicated affected both spoken and written kassim language which according to him was dying among the youth.

He said the use of broken kassim language and chatting in different languages among the youth had made it more difficult for the youth to understand and use the language.

Mr Kadingdi bemoaned the poor presentation of kassim on radio stations and called for an improvement in the language use and also encouraged its usage and teaching in schools.

He urged the youth to use the festival to learn.