Regional News of Sunday, 27 November 2005

Source: GNA

Tema Meridian Rotary builds day care centre/library

Tema, Nov. 27, GNA - The Acting Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Michael Nsowah on Saturday night called on the privileged in the society and stakeholders to sacrifice a little to support the education of the needy but brilliant children. He said, every child, irrespective of their background must enjoy basic education as a right, hence the struggle by many countries to meet this challenge.

Ghana, he said was not left out, that was why the government in playing a major role, has introduced the capitation grant to encourage school going-age children have basic education, while the GES has also created a unit that sees to the welfare of children and their health. However, government efforts alone cannot meet the 2015 target set to ensure that every Ghanaian child enjoys Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), hence the call for the involvement of the privileged, so as to meet this realisation.

The Ag. Director General made the call at a fund raising dinner dance held by the Rotary Club of Tema Meridian, District 9100 in aid of a library and day care centre to be sited at Tema.

To achieve this aim, Mr Nsowah appealed to Ghanaians to sacrifice drinking a bottle of beer a week and save that money towards adopting the less privileged child in order to meet the 2015 target.

He explained that the greater part of monies allocated for education go into the payment of salaries of employees in that sector, explaining the GES inability to meet all the requirements. He commended the Rotary Clubs in the country for their immense contribution to towards education, saying that, the education sector has really benefited from their efforts and appealed to other societies to emulate them.

Madam Shirley-Ann Fiagome, President of the Club said in line with their motto "Service Above Self", members have embarked on apprenticeship programme and sponsored many school drops outs to acquire skills in various vocations. They have also adopted some public schools and provide them with some of their needs and wish to continue to equip a day care centre as well as a library for the Akodzo and Tewdaase cluster of schools with the funds realised. She said in collaboration with the Rotary District 1400 in Denmark, the club was commencing a project to provide potable water to the Adambrobe/Gonten communities in the Tema municipality. 27 Nov. 05