Lawra, May 11, GNA - The Lawra District Assembly has procured sets of audio cassettes of the President's Initiative on distance learning for senior and junior secondary schools to be made available to all students in the district.

In addition, the four senior secondary schools in the district would each receive a Video Compact Disc Deck by the end of this month to expand the scope of the distance-learning programme with the objective of developing the human resource base of the district. Mr George Sulley, the District Chief Executive who was speaking to newsmen at Lawra on some of the initiatives being undertaken by the assembly, said a total amount of 720 million cedis had so far been spent on the rural education volunteer programme that ended in October last year.

He said the Assembly would continue to sponsor the project for the next three years, adding that 290 million cedis was spent on the Day Care Attendants programme that covered about 175 attendants. Mr Sulley said since the introduction of the capitation grant, primary school and JSS enrolment had increased by 1,801 and 284 respectively while that of the kindergarten shot up by 1,877, in the district. The assembly, he said, had resolved to raise the retention rate from the Primary to JSS by 100 per cent. Under the NEPAD School Feeding programme, Yikpe, Vapuo, Boo, Bagri and Ketuo primary schools had been selected to benefit from the pilot scheme. Water reservoirs had already been sent to the schools and all the necessary arrangements put in place for the programme to take off, Mr Sulley said. 11 May 06