Regional News of Thursday, 22 March 2012

Source: GNA

New boys’ dormitory for Akropong School for the blind inaugurated

Mr Lee Ocran, Minister of Education, on Wednesday inaugurated a GH¢ 375,000 boys’ dormitory for the Akropong School for the Blind.

He also broke the grounds for the commencement of a GH¢ 139,000 computer laboratory for the school, all funded by the MTN Ghana Foundation.

Mr Ocran said the provision of infrastructure was the starting point of providing quality education.

He said in view of that the government was committed to ensuring that school children all over the country, irrespective of their location were provided with decent and appropriate structure.

“The abolishing of some 2,350 Schools under trees and the shift system are some of the interventions being rigorously pursued by the government to ensure that school children have access to quality education to enable them become productive members of society” he added.

Mr Ocran said government affirms its policy that the strengthening of the basic education level was critical to the total development of education in the country.

He expressed appreciation on behalf of government and the people of Ghana to MTN for putting up the dormitory and encouraged others to also support the government’s effort at developing basic education.

Mr Michael Ikpoki, Chief Executive Officer of MTN, said MTN’s association with the school dated back to June 2008 and that through an interaction with the school, the Foundation decided to provide a three-year support for the school to a tune of GH¢ 600,000.

He said they promised to support the construction of a sixteen, one storey boys’ dormitory block, in the first year, an Information Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, the second year and a thirty seater bus, the third year.

He expressed profound gratitude to the management of Latex Foam for responding to their appeal for the supply of student mattresses to the school.

Ms Adriana Kandilige, Eastern Regional Director of Education, urged the authorities of the school to maintain the donations to the school.**