Hohoe, Feb 22, GNA- Ms Juliet D Kumah, Hohoe Municipal Director of Education, on Thursday urged operators of private schools to develop comprehensive curriculum to enhance academic work towards national development.

She called for emphasis on sports, culture and inter-school literary activities, essential for the development of children. Ms Kumah said these in a speech read on her behalf at the launch of a week-long celebration of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools under the theme, "Private Schools In The New Education Reform Programme," at Hohoe.

She urged the association to draw programmes that would assist in the prevention and management of HIV/AIDS.

Ms Kumah commended private school proprietors for ensuring that their schools attained excellence in examinations. Mr Godwin Sowah, National President of GNAPS said "We need to ensure that society was influencing our schools positively and vice versa, while it is guaranteed that cultural, political, economic and religious factors are affecting positively our educational structures..."

He called on the Regional and District Directors of Education to check recalcitrant and unlicensed Schools' operators who were exploiting parents, students and pupils.

Mrs Justine Amevor, Hohoe Zonal Chairperson of GNAPS, said private schools continued to suffer setbacks and cited that they were not considered in the disbursement of the Capitation Grant and the provision of certain amenities.

She called on government to reconsider it position on the disbursement and appealed for the re-introduction of the Moral and Religious Education into the New Education Reform. "The moral and cognitive development of pupils and students are paramount in our quest for quality and sound education", Mrs Amevor said.