Bolgatanga, Aug. 28, GNA - The Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Upper East Region needs 1,320 extra classrooms for the 46,210 newly enrolled pupils during the 2005/2006 academic year. It would also need 1,320 more teachers to take the additional classes.

Mrs. Elizabeth Ayire Mwinkaar, Regional director of Education said this at the weekend when she met with women of the region at a forum in Bolgatanga.

She noted that the increase would also demand a corresponding demand for more teaching and learning materials and Circuit Supervisors. She explained that the Capitation Grant and the School Feeding Programme had encouraged parents to send their children to school as they were given free lunch and did not have to pay school fees or any levies.

She said the total enrolment for boys in 2004/2005 academic year increased by 24,1449 in 2005/2006 academic year while that of girls rose by 22,061 during the same period. Mrs. Mwinkaar said the Capitation Grant also helped to provide

Teaching and Learning materials for effective schoolwork, retraining of staff through school and cluster-in-service training and minor repairs on school buildings.

On the role of stakeholders, she said despite the benefits of the capitation grant, the challenges called for the introduction of the hshift system as that would reduce idling on the part of students and also reduce the class size for effective teaching and learning. She appealed to the GETFUND to support Municipal and district Assemblies to provide infrastructure and furniture for the schools. She cautioned that the payment or non-payment of Parent Teacher Association (PTA) fees should not in any way affect pupils from attending school. "Since PTA is an association of parents and not student/pupils, executive members of the association in a bid to collect fees/dues should contact their colleagues to collect the fees and not through the student", she said.