Wa, Oct.27, GNA -The Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Caesar Kale, has announced that functional literacy training could be the key medium in helping to attain Ghana's Millennium Development Goals. Mr. Caesar Kale made this announcement when he opened a workshop organised by the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED)of the Ministry of Education in the Upper West Region.

The training workshop, which included 250 facilitators, was geared at providing them with the necessary skills to enable them to effectively communicate with adult illiterates.

The training would also provide the facilitators with income generating skills. It would also provide them with knowledge and keep them well informed about about government's policies and programmes.

Mr Kale said functional literacy should not be limited to the use of practical knowledge to deal with the societal challenges alone. Rather, it should also be used as the key medium of accelerating Ghana's attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in the area of poverty eradication, improvement in the standard of education and the reduction in HIV and AIDS, and malaria.

Mr. Kale, therefore, challenged the resource persons to provide the knowledge and skills to be used in influencing the lifestyles of their learners.

He noted that the interest for NFED programmes had dwindled over the years, partly due to the want of wealth among learners which led to the detriment of acquiring knowledge.

He, however, entreated the NFED to encourage its learners to develop some more interest in its programmes.

"It is time for us as a people to put our priorities right, by acquiring knowledge and being disciplined with hard work to enhance sustainable development," Mr Kale said. "We must avoid the tendency of taking appointments and going to sleep with it."

Mr. Festus Dakurah, Upper West Regional Director of the NFED, appealed to the facilitators to act as agents of change in their communities.

He advised them to show good examples of themselves and work diligently for the good of Ghana, pointing out that, the success of the programme would depend on the quality of facilitators in the system. Mr. G.K. Kutu, a Chief Programme Officer at NFED in Accra, said the workshop was meant to improve the skills, knowledge and attitudes of its facilitators to enable them to effectively handle their learners.