The UNICEF support programmes on female education in the Tolon/Kumbungu District have brought an increase in girl enrolment in schools within the district this year.

About 7,057 girls have been enrolled in various schools in the district this year as against 6,620 in 2002.

The Tolon/Kumbungu District Director of Education Mr Bonzali Isaac Alpha said this at Tolon on Friday when he took delivery of 100 bicycles from the District Assembly for distribution to 100 girls who travel long distances to and from schools in the Tolon Circuit.UNICEF donated the bicycles as part of its support programmes to enhance female education in the Northern part of Ghana.

Mr Alpha commended UNICEF for the gesture and advised the beneficiaries to take the opportunity to study hard to justify the investment UNICEF and their parents were putting into their education.Mr Opoku Nkansah, the District Coordinating Director who represented the District Chief Executive, handed over the bicycles to the District Director of Education for presentation to the beneficiaries and warned circuit supervisors not to divert the bicycles. Ms. Doris Mensah, a representative of the beneficiaries thanked UNICEF for their efforts to equip girls to enable them to go to school.

Mr Nkansah later commissioned a 160 million-cedis HIPC funded three-unit classroom block for the Irshadiya E/A Primary School and handed over 288 dual desks and 16 teachers' tables valued at 74.4 million cedis for distribution to various schools in the district